The Mark of Athena
by RAfan2421
Summary: Wisdom's daughter walks alone... Percy and the seven are bound for Greece. They know the stakes, they know the challenges. However, they never expected that the seven would not be who they thought it would be. Don't kill me, Percabeth lovers. Rated T
1. Chapter 1

**THE MARK OF ATHENA**

**Hello all! This is RAfan2421. This is my very first fanfic, so I would love reviews and constructive criticism. No flames please.**

**I hope you enjoy the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, nor any of the characters in the book. They belong to Rick Riordan.**

I Reunited

As the huge flying ship landed, Percy felt elated. He was going to see Annabeth again. His friends were going to be on board. Even with the threat of Gaea looming, he couldn't help, but feel completely happy and carefree. The ship landed in the middle of the field, and the ladder was lowered. About fifteen or so people climbed down. Most of them Percy recognized. There were the head counselors of almost every cabin. There were only three people that Percy did not recognize. They were a boy with cropped blond hair, sky blue eyes, and a scar on his lip, whom Reyna embraced the moment he stepped off the ship, and promptly received a glare from the girl on the boy's left. The third person stood at the steering wheel of the ship. He had curly hair, dark eyes, a cheerful face, and a mischievous smile. As Percy stepped up to greet them with Hazel and Frank hovering behind him, he saw the person that made his smile break out. _Annabeth_. She jumped off the ladder and ran full pelt at him. She even knocked an equally fast, but not quite so smart, Jake, into the ground. Jake had recovered from his dragon escapade well enough to accompany everybody else to Camp Jupiter. After Annabeth had gotten over her initial happiness at seeing Percy, she reverted to her old habits of annoying Percy and calling him "Seaweed Brain." Percy and Jason, Piper, and Leo, met each other for the first time. Percy was impressed by Jason, was unsure about Piper, and liked Leo, even though he told corny jokes and made tofu burgers.

Later in the evening, Percy and Annabeth sat next to each other in the dining pavilion, catching up. A lot of people came up to them, wanting to meet Percy's girlfriend. While Percy had made it public in Camp Half-Blood about his relationship with Annabeth, he still blushed whenever somebody asked him when he was going to "make a move" or something. At nine, Percy retired to the fifth Cohort's barracks after a "sort of" fight with Jason over who should sleep in the praetor's villa. Both had said the other deserved it, and finally Jason agreed to sleep in the villa. Percy got to sleep with his old friends in the Fifth Cohort. Frank and Hazel had been talking to him, and how he was so lucky to have such a beautiful girlfriend (at which point Percy had thrown a pillow at Frank, and the ensuing pillow fight could probably go down in the top ten most violent fights ever). They had all wore themselves out and now Percy was staring up at the ceiling thinking about the past few days. Also, he thought of Ella's chilling prophecy.

"_Wisdom's daughter walks alone,_

_The Mark of Athena burns through Rome."_

The next morning, he was awakened by Frank and they all went to have breakfast together. After the happy reunion day the day before, things immediately started going downhill. It started at breakfast, when the Second Cohort began mouthing off that the Greeks weren't "real" fighters and that Romans kicked their butts when they conquered Greece. This led to a challenge and then a riot, which took a full hour to calm down. Throughout the day, fights kept on breaking out. Fortunately for the Greeks, the Romans were cocky and mostly got their butts whipped, but still, Will Solace and Jake Mason needed to go to the infirmary for some minor injuries. Percy knew that there would have to be a way to bridge the hate. Percy and the other five demigods who were part of the seven got together in the praetor villa and talked. Reyna joined in on the conversation.

Piper was raving mad, especially since she'd endured an entire cohort's training while her cohort got the day off as long as they laughed and taunted her, which all of them gladly did. "Why the hell can't you praetors just stop them from doing things."

Jason replied, "If it was that easy, Octavian wouldn't be augur, we would've found some good Cohort heads, and Rome probably wouldn't be the same Rome it is today."

Percy said, "It was hard for me to be accepted when I first got here, so it'll be even harder for you, especially since I ended Octavian's dreams of becoming praetor. I'm pretty sure he was working to get the praetor's job for months while Jason was missing, and he was really pissed when I jumped in and took it from him."

"You're right, he was badgering me day and night for elections." Reyna said. "We can't just take his power away because he's augur. And he has the second and the fourth cohort under his wing. They'll obey his commands without question."

"Basically, we need a way of either getting rid of Octavian, or be able to sneak all the people out without anybody knowing." Percy said.

"There must be something that we can do to annihilate the problem of Octavian. Do you know anything of his past? Is there anything that would make him hate Greeks?" asked Annabeth, who joined in on this conversation a few minutes after the start of the meeting.

"We don't know anything about his past. We don't know where his mortal parent is. I highly doubt that his immortal parent knows what happened in his childhood, and even if they did, it's not like you could just say Hey Apollo, why don't you tell us what happened in Octavian's childhood?" Reyna said.

They all fell silent, thinking up ways to stop Octavian from preventing the seven to go to Greece. The meeting adjourned shortly thereafter, and Percy ended up with Leo on the beach.

"So, how's life?" Leo asked.

"Fine I suppose, although, I do wish that Hera hadn't messed with my mind."

Suddenly, a boy ran up to them.

"Senate meeting," he panted, "All praetors and Greeks must be there."

"We'll be there." Percy replied.

The boy nodded and ran off.

"Come on, Leo, let's go see what Octavian has to say this time around."

"Knowing him, it can't have anything to do with love and kisses could it?"

"Leo, you might find that girls would like you better if you stopped popping corny jokes."

"Hey! They're not corny, their funny, and all girls just adore me."

"Yeah, so why did that girl just take one look at you, and sprint off?"

"That's cuz she's going to tell all her friends about my amazing personality and my sexy looks."

"Shut up, Leo."

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	2. Chapter 2

**Enjoy Chapter 2**

**Do not hate me for this chapter! Read the summary.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Everything belongs to Rick Riordan.**

**II Senate Meeting**

"Take your weapons out!"

Percy heard the familiar shout of Terminus stopping everybody going to the Senate meeting. The Greeks were slow to catch on, but they eventually realized that this statue who had no arms was telling them to take out all their weapons.

Leo tried to get past the statue, but was stopped.

"Hold it right there, mister, that belt of yours is carrying weapons, I can feel it. Give it to me now, or I'll strangle you!"

"Strangle me? You don't even have-arghhhhhh!"

Percy shoved a gag into Leo's mouth, stopping him from saying "You don't have any arms." because he remembered the last time he had said that, and it wasn't a good experience.

"Just hand in the toolbelt."

"No! This toolbelt is magical, I keep it with me all the time, and I've never took it off since I found it in Bunker 9."

"Bunker 9?"

"Oh, I forgot, you weren't there. Well, I discovered this amazing bunker in the woods. It served as a refuge for demigods during the civil war."

"Okay… and tell me why there would be a magic toolbelt in there and why you cannot take the toolbelt off?"

"I'll take it off, jeez, don't have to be so angry."

"Will you two GET ON WITH IT!" yelled Terminus.

Leo, Percy, and everybody else handed over the weapons, and Terminus finally allowed them over the border line. Once they got into the Senate, they saw that Octavian was already there. Reyna sat stiff and silent in her seat. When the meeting began, Octavian immediately said that since Camp Half-Blood hadn't managed to produce anybody to be on the quest for the Great Prophecy, it was natural that Rome should step in and substitute them. Then, without giving anybody any time to object, he produced his candidates. They were two of his meanest, most loyal cronies, and everybody there knew that they would keep Octavian informed about the quest. Almost everybody objected, but Octavian said that he had "read the future" and knew that they were chosen. Nobody could object because if they did, they would be challenging Octavian, and nobody wanted to challenge Octavian.

The next matter was who was going to be the leader of the quest. Octavian said that his candidate, Joseph, should be the leader. He was Roman, and he had the most senior rank. That worked well, until Jason pointed out that Percy was praetor, and therefore held the most senior rank. The ensuing "fight" lasted about five seconds, which ended up with Octavian taking a punch in the head, and reluctantly agreeing to let Percy become leader.

After the meeting adjourned, Percy found himself with Frank. Frank was one of his relatives, so he was pretty sure he could trust him with a secret.

"Frank, have you ever felt like you liked a girl before, but now after several months apart you sort of fell apart yourselves."

"No, not really why?"

"Well, I used to really love Annabeth, but I'm not so sure now. She's beautiful, but I just don't know."

"Dude, Annabeth is perfect for you, she's smart, cute, and funny. She obviously cares about you."

"Well, you can't force love, Frank. I feel bad about thinking about dumping her after she spent the better part of eight months searching for me, but I don't feel the same way I do before."

"Well, if you have to break up with her, don't go out with anybody else for some time."

Frank was looking out at the sea, so completely missed Percy's look of panic and disappointment.

(**A/N Please don't climb through a window in my house and kill me, Percabeth fans. I just felt sick of all those Mark of Athenas because every one of them have Percabeth in them.)**

Suddenly, there was a huge explosion on the other side of camp, near the River Tiber.

"Holy Crap, what the hell was that?"

"Don't ask me, do you think I have superhuman sight?"

"Not the time to get smart with me Frank, and if that was supposed to be a joke, then just do me a favor."

"What might that be?"

"Shut up and follow me."

Percy ran full pelt towards the source of the explosion.

_Meanwhile on Mt. Olympus_

"_Do you have a rat, I'm hungry."_

"_Shut up George, don't you ever think about something other than rats."_

"_I'm hungry, I need a rat. Even when Hermes was inventing the Internet he still had time to give me a rat."_

"_He's too busy."_

"_Yeah, sitting on the steps of the Mt. Olympus throne room sulking because Zeus won't let him deliver the mail is called busy."_

"_George show some respect, do you want him to put us on mute again."_

"_Ugh no, but still, I'M HUNGRY!"_

"Will the two of you SHUT UP?" yelled Hermes.

"Hermes! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO MUTE YOUR PHONE WHEN YOU ARE NEAR THE THRONE ROOM?" Hera yelled.

"_Hey maybe we can get into a real fight. I remember the Titan War. Laser mode was really fun."_

"_SHUT U-"_

"Happy?" asked Hermes.

"Not particularly." Replied Hera.

Then, Hephaestus came over and said, "I just caught Ares and Aphrodite in another trap. You wanna come and see?"

Zeus sighed."This is getting old, Hephaestus, and when I mean old, I mean millennium old. "

"I will!" said an enthusiastic Apollo.

"Boys." Athena, Artemis, and Hestia said together.

_Back at Camp Jupiter_

As it turned out, the explosion was caused by Leo, who had burst into flames when one of his fellow cohort members had pushed him over his anger limit. The thing that had blown up was a barrel, lying off to the side. The cohort guy had been sent to the infirmary, and it didn't seem like he was going to be coming out anytime soon, but Leo wasn't exactly in a great position either. Octavian immediately called out saying that the Greeks were untrustworthy brats who should be rooted out. Especially fire users. He immediately had the Second and Fourth Cohort behind him. The Greeks were forced to scatter, and by the time Frank and Percy arrived on the scene, the two cohorts had turned into a mob.

When they saw Percy, they began chanting, "Kill the Greek, Drive out the Greek."

Percy and Frank were forced to make a run for it. All the Greeks who had managed to get away, plus Hazel and Frank, who were part of the Great Prophecy regrouped in the praetor villa. They had all managed to get their things they needed to sail to Greece. Soon, the Greeks and the five of the Seven made a dash for the Argo II. They all made it, and soon were in the air. They managed to make it out of danger, but Jason had a tight pit in his stomach, because they had been forced to leave Reyna behind. He hoped that she would understand why he left, and why he didn't tell her about it beforehand.

**Love any type of review, as long as no flames.**

**I'll try to post chapter three tomorrow.**

**-RAfan2421**


	3. Chapter 3

**Here's Chapter 3.**

**BTW this is in 1****st**** person.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO nor HHO, and I never will. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**Crash III **

**(Percy)**

You know how it feels, after days of excitement and action, everything suddenly becomes boring, and you can't take it. Annabeth, being who she is, brought a set of chess on board, and we had a chess tournament. This went great if you were smart, but it was hell if you are not. And it was hell for me. The only time that I won was because Hazel got sucked into one of her memories again, and had to forfeit. All the other times, I kept committing suicide with my queen. It wasn't like I was trying to or anything, it just happened. I just couldn't see how my queen would always get killed, until it actually happened. I always lost in the first round, except when Hazel forfeited. The only consolation was, Jason was even worse than I was. So every time Annabeth would start a chess tournament, what would happen would be, I lose, Jason loses, we hang out and talk, we have nothing to say because we have already done this 109 times, we get bored, we talk about the most random things. I was almost hoping for a monster. Well, now I realize, don't wish for something you don't actually want.

Jason and I were talking about exactly how it feels when a ship crashes into a sperm whale (this is the biggest whale in the ocean). I'm not even sure if the scenario was real, but hey, like I said, we were really bored and had nothing else to talk about.

Suddenly, a huge green sea monster burst out of the ocean, nearly flipped the Argo II, and sprayed poison everywhere. Fortunately, the poison missed us. Still, Jason and I yelled for Annabeth and the rest of them to get up here. As soon as Leo saw the sea monster, he jumped on its neck, and burst into flame.

Oh I should explain, Leo got a new fighting technique. Jump on your enemy, and burst into flames. We tried to point out to him that if he used that method on a normal person, he'd most likely get impaled by that person's sword. He proceeded to tell us that he would only use it on monsters.

The rest of us drew our weapons and leaped to the attack. Well, that would've been a great strategy, except for the fact that nobody had bothered to steer the Argo II. Now it was headed for this island. We first dealt with the sea monster, doing enough damage for the monster to sink back into the sea, hopefully for a long, long time. Most of us were unharmed. The only serious injury was Annabeth, who had broken an arm trying to stab at the monster. Instead, the monster had whipped its neck around and smashed it into her arm. Now she was slowly sinking. I grabbed her around the waist, and pulled her to the surface. She kissed me, before passing out. I tried to will the waves to bring me to the Argo II, but too late. It smashed into the island with crushing force. We could feel the shockwave, even though we were about 1000 meters away from the impact. Everybody either grabbed on to Jason or myself, and we managed to make it to the island without anybody drowning. I laid Annabeth down on the beach, and ran toward the wreckage of the Argo II. When Leo got there and saw how bad the damage was, he burst into tears. Nobody blamed him, he had built that ship carefully and lovingly, and had spent a lot of time on it. Most people sat down, but Jason and I walked up and tried to assess the damage. I looked at the boat, and realized that it was very bad. The hull had been smashed, as well as the mast. It would be hard to rebuild this thing. Now, we had to make a difficult choice. Do we build a new, smaller boat? Or do we try and fix the Argo II. This was when one of the bitterest fights erupted. Everybody, who were already on edge, turned on each other at the slightest provocation. It only took Clarisse one word in disagreement to set off a fully-fledged argument. Most of the campers from Camp Half-Blood wanted to build a new ship. Leo, however, was adamant. He said that the Argo II was definitely the ship that should sail to Greece, therefore it must be repaired. Soon, the group had split up. Within five weeks, the group in favor of building a new ship had already set sail and left. The people who chose to build a new ship were Will Solace, Connor and Travis Stoll, Malcolm, Annabeth, and a few other people. The only people left were Leo, Hazel, Frank, Jason, Piper, me, and Nico. When we found out that only seven of us were remaining, we knew we were the seven. We were sure of it. Nico seemed surprised that he was part of the seven. He had always thought that the seventh member would be Annabeth. Then, we set to work rebuilding the Argo II.

It took two months to repair. We had to fix the hull and the mast, repair damages along the sides, and put the head of Festus the dragon back onto the mast. We were pretty sure that we now had only about two months before the Giant War began in full force. We were cut off from the world on this island, so when we got back into a place with satellite connection, we were shocked to hear that huge earthquakes and tsunamis had been ravaging the world. People were starting to think that "2012" was real. The world was going to end. You know, I'm not sure how far off their predictions might be.

When we neared Greece, another bitter fight erupted. Leo wanted to keep the Argo II in the air near the battlefield to provide air support. Jason and Piper backed him up. Hazel and Frank told him it wasn't a good idea. They pointed out that since the demigods were at a huge disadvantage in numbers, they had to compensate for that fact. Nico and I said that we should use stealth, and if we were to use stealth, there would be no way we could use the Argo II. Even a giant who's colorblind, had taken a few punches in the head, and had one eye swollen shut, could be able to see the Argo II. In the end a compromise was made. The Argo II would be used to scout, but not attack. That way it wouldn't get in the way of stealth, but it would be able to have some use in the war.

Now, that we reached Greece we had two things we needed to do. One, persuade the gods to fight with us, and two, stay alive, because we were fairly certain that Gaea would send thousands of monsters after us, give us nightmares, and basically make life hell for us. Well, we are the seven in the Great Prophecy, so we have to live up to it.

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**Chapter four should be up tomorrow.**

**-RAfan2421**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm back with another chapter.**

**Enjoy chapter 4**

**For the dispute over Nico, Im just gonna say that he came back. He wasn't really missing, captured by Gaea, etc.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians nor do I own the Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**IV Greece**

**(Hazel)**

So, over the past few weird months, I finally got around to thinking about what had actually happened, instead of having to get up each day to continue repairing the Argo II. We'd reached Greece and sent up a small headquarters. I was sitting alone, thinking, when Leo came over. Oh god, this is going to be weird, I thought.

"Hey Hazel, how's it going?"

I tried not to stutter as I replied, "Yeah i-it's been going great!"

"Really, from your expression, it doesn't seem so great."

"Well, there's just been something on my mind."

"What is it?"

Just as I was about to launch into a lengthy conversation with him, Jason called and asked Leo to go and check on some malfunction that happened on the Argo II, which was in a nearby field. My thoughts wandered. Leo was a great guy, he was cute, funny, and a pretty good friend, but I don't know whether or not I wanted him instead of Frank. Frank was dependable, modest, and I'd known him longer, technically. Also, I kissed him, and that counts for something.

Percy saw me sitting here, so he came over to have a chat. When he saw my expression, I'm pretty sure he surmised what I was thinking.

"Romantic trouble?" he asked.

"How'd you know?"

"I had the same type of trouble."

"Oh, so who's the lucky lady?"

"WHAT! NO! I just don't love Annabeth anymore, I didn't say that I liked someone else."

"Okay, okay, don't have to yell it for the world to hear."

"So, what's the problem."

I decided to confess to him, since I hadn't confessed to Leo, and the problem was bothering me. I just had to spit it out.

"You know when we got that video message during the Feast of Fortuna?"

"Yeah, Leo told us not to shoot down a flying ship. In retrospect, the way he put it was pretty funny."

"Yeah, hilarious, now I thought you wanted to know what my 'romantic' problem was?"

"Oh, right, sorry, go on!"

"Well, I think I recognize Leo as someone from my past."

"What?"

"Well, back in the 1940's, he or maybe one of his relatives was my 'sort of' boyfriend."

I could see the light dawn on Percy's face as he realized what I was saying.

"So you're confused as to who you really want as a boyfriend."

"Yeah, and it's been bothering me."

"Well, I didn't learn much from my relationship with Annabeth, but at the beginning I learned one valuable thing. Do what your gut instinct tells you if you have no clear answer as to what you should do."

"Thanks Percy, I appreciate it, I'll monitor their behavior and see who I like better."

Percy got up, and went toward the command headquarters tent.

(Leo)

"What is it?"

I was annoyed at Jason for interrupting my conversation with Hazel. I really wanted to get to know her better. She always seemed so jumpy and nervous around me. I don't know why, but I'm intrigued, so I wanted to know more. She seemed just like myself, with a bad past that you want to forget, but can't because it is always haunting you.

"Festus's head, it fell off."

At those words I completely forgot about my conversation with Hazel and focused on fixing Festus's head and reattaching him to the mast.

"Hey Flaming Valdez, aren't you finished yet?"

I looked around, and Piper stood there.

"Not yet, beauty queen, so stop talking to me, I've got to concentrate."

"Fine."

I heard retreating footsteps. Then a sleepy voice sounded in my mind.

"_You like Hazel, admit it. Now, you will do as I say, or I shall take away her life. After all, I have the power of the Doors of Death."_

"Shut up Gaea, and leave me alone!"

"_Ahhh, but child, do you not realize? You are standing in the middle of a wasteland. Monsters are surrounding you. My own Porphyrion has sent the worst monsters at you. There is no way the gods can win. Why don't you join my side, help us win even more easily than it already is? After this is done, you may even see your mother again."_

Dang, that was tempting. I wanted to see my mother so badly. Then, I realized, Mom would never forgive me if I gave up the world to see her again. And I didn't even know if Gaea was telling the truth or not.

"Get out of here Gaea, or do you want me to find another toilet seat and throw it at your face?"

The voice laughed, a silvery tinkling laugh.

"_You amuse me Leo Valdez. Perhaps I'll keep you as a jokester after the war is over. Oh, and by the way, toilet seats don't hurt at all."_

The sleeping woman disappeared. I was left staring at a broken wire in Festus's head, and a slight dip in the ground which was all that was left of my conversation with Gaea.

(Jason)

Love triangles. How I loathe them. Now, that I know and have seen Reyna again, I don't know who to pick. Reyna is fiery, dependable, loyal, brave, and a great fighter. Piper is beautiful, fast, and a great ally to have on my side. Both are great girls, and frankly, I think most people would be flattered to have two people like you. I can tell you, it's not pleasant.

As I walked to where Leo was working on Festus, I saw him staring at the ground with a sort of faraway look in his eyes. As soon as I saw that, I knew something had happened. I'd known Leo for some time now, and if there's one look he definitely does not have, it's a depressed, faraway sort of look. Yet, here he was, staring at the ground.

"What's up ,man?"

"Oh hey Jason, nothing's up, why'd you ask."

"You look weird and worried, what happened.

"Well mate, Gaea came to see me. Again."

**A/N: Do they say "mate" in this series?**

**Anyways, hope you enjoyed.**

**Read and review please!**

**-RAfan2421**


	5. Chapter 5

**Enjoy Chapter 5**

**Please review chapters. Right now, I'm pretty much updating every day. However, if there are no reviews, I'm basically writing this story for nothing, so please review.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HHO. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**V Monster fight (the first one)**

**(Jason)**

"What did Gaea want?" I asked, sitting down next to him.

"She wanted the usual. Join my side so we can win, blah blah blah. What she offered was different."

I knew as soon as I saw Leo's expression that Gaea had offered something to do with his mom. Back on our quest to save Hera, whenever Leo's mom was the topic of conversation, Leo would immediately go quiet, and lose the joking, easygoing, fun attitude. He'd become as serious Reyna would be at a Senate meeting.

"What did she offer?" I asked, knowing almost certainly what the answer was.

"She offered my mom in exchange for me switching sides."

"Look, Leo, everybody here would hate it if you joined Gaea's side, but I wouldn't blame you. Sure, I don't really know what it is like to lose a family member, but I know it must really suck. I also know that if given the chance, I would want to see my mother again, and from the description you gave me, I'm pretty sure your mother is a thousand times better than my mother, which means your wanting would be even greater than mine. Everywhere, people would call you a traitor, but I wouldn't blame you if you actually switched sides."

"I didn't switch sides. I knew that even if Gaea was telling the truth, which I highly doubt she is, my mother would never forgive me if I switched sides. I'm staying with you guys, and I'm part of the seven. You need me, especially as a mechanic." Leo said with a half-smile.

Seeing that Leo was back in the "Leo" mood, I joked, "Yeah, and the mechanic who was supposed to be fixing Festus has taken a very long time to do so, a very long time indeed."

Leo snorted, "All I'm supposed to do is fix the dragon, don't you have anything to do?"

I then realized that I was late for the meeting that we had arranged.

"Sh*t!" I said, and sprinted off to the headquarters tent. I could hear Leo laughing after me, before the clinking started again, which meant that he was working again."

(Percy)

When Jason finally got here to begin the meeting, we poked fun at him, of course. It's become a routine. We always poke fun at the person who does something wrong. It's become our entertainment. Sad, I know, but hey, we've got no electronics, no games (our chessboard got destroyed when the Argo II hit the island, and all the pieces got scattered. We never managed to find them again.), so poking fun and joking around was the only entertainment we got around here these days. When we got back to a more serious note, we began planning our strategies. Nico had managed to procure for us a map of the battlefields in Greece. He had shadow traveled there, took careful notes and drew detailed maps, before shadow traveling back. Now, we planned on how to fight Gaea and the giants.  
>A few days ago, about twenty Roman and Greek demigods, plus the Hunters of Artemis joined our camp. We were slowly gathering demigods to fight, just like during the Titan War. Sure, the prophecy was "Seven half-bloods answer the call", but that doesn't mean that we can't have more demigods and then have only the seven of us fight at the very final battle, just like Luke, Annabeth, Grover, and I did during the Titan War.<p>

Our first strategy was where our position was. We were, once again, in a defensive position. We were in the middle of planning when yelling started outside. I stuck my head out of the tent, and gasped at what I saw.

"What is it?" asked Jason.

"Monsters, a lot of monsters." I replied.

We all picked up our weapons and ran outside to help the demigods and Hunters fight. We killed all the monsters, but took several injuries ourselves. Thankfully, nobody was killed. We all knew that Gaea was just messing with us, hoping to weaken us before the actual final battle against the giants. There was nothing we could do however, because we were sitting ducks until we had a good strategy. We couldn't go in now, because it was around the spring equinox right now, and we wanted to fight at the summer solstice, where "good" magic was at its strongest point. However, after this attack, we were more aware that Gaea would send monsters to harass us, so we made a scouting team that would warn us ahead of time if a group of monsters were coming towards the camp. Meanwhile, we had to set up an infirmary to treat the wounded. We had some nectar and ambrosia, but we didn't want to use it since it was in limited supply. After a few hectic days, we settled on jobs. There were five types. You usually rotated around since some jobs required you to pull all-nighters.

Scout. You would scout out the enemy forces

Doctor. You treated the wounded and tended to their needs.

Planners. You planned strategies and tried to talk to the gods.

Weaponry. You worked on your weapon skills and forged weapons if you were good at it.

Miscellaneous. You worked on whatever was needed to be done and rested if there was nothing else to be done.

It wasn't a bad plan by any means, but we didn't have that many people. However, some more demigods arrived from either Camp Half-Blood, or Camp Jupiter, where Reyna had managed to retain control and overpower Octavian and his crew. With the new arrivals, we had about fifty people, and it was easier to delegate jobs.

The Seven from the prophecy and some of the leaders of the Greeks, Romans, and the Hunters planned strategy. We went over some plans, discarded others, and refined most of them. Every now and then monsters would attack, but our scouts gave us ample amount of warning so we had nothing to worry about. One day, as another meeting finished, Frank and I began a conversation. It quickly steered toward Hazel. Frank knew that I knew a lot about Hazel and that she had confided in me a lot. He wanted to know how she felt about him. So I started to tell him…

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**I know this is a really bad cliffy, but whatever. **

**-RAfan2421**


	6. Chapter 6

**I haven't posted the last two days, and I'm sorry. **

**Here's chapter 6**

**Getting tired of these. Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or The Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**VI Strategizing? Nope, just fighting**

**(Percy)**

I knew what was going on inside Hazel's head. I told Frank that she was confused, because Leo looked a lot like somebody from her past. He was her old boyfriend. Frank looked really down-hearted, so I told him the about the other part of my conversation with Hazel. I told Frank that she hadn't decided yet. He brightened a little, and went off to help Jason with a new weapon style.

I went off to the headquarters tent, to find really loud shouting, and some really bad language going on in there. If I hadn't known that the tent hadn't been big enough, I would've said that a dozen Arions were in there, and six of them had just made the other six really mad. That was how bad the language was.

When I went in, I found a couple of the Hunters in a huge fight with Hazel and Piper.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! What's going on in here?" I asked.

"Tell them that their stupid strategy won't work, it'll get us killed. Our strategy, on the other hand, will work perfectly fine and we won't be killed!" Piper shouted.

"Like Hades your strategy is going to work! Do you see the position that you put these girls in? They'll all be killed!"

I tried to lighten the mood, and asked why they were fighting, since the Hunters had usually tolerated girls. It didn't help, and I nearly got skewered by a couple of hunting knives. These days, with all the demigods here restless and dangerous with all their weapons, I almost miss my Achilles curse. Almost.

When I finally saw the battle plan, I said that both had their faults and if the Hunters and Piper and Hazel cooperated, it would make a good plan. Originally, I wanted it so that I showed no team favoritism, so that I wouldn't take a knife or a sword. This plan backfired. Instead, both sides started shouting at me. I guess the only good part was that they had now joined together. This would probably create a good battle plan. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure that by their glares, I wouldn't live to see the morning again.

**(Jason)**

I had been trying to learn the Greek way of fighting, when I saw Percy coming. I needed some help. Frank had offered to help me, but after a few spars, I easily defeated him. I'm not saying Frank is bad or anything, but he just isn't good enough. I needed someone skilled like Percy. Unfortunately, as soon as I saw the harassed expression on his face, I knew it wasn't the time to ask him for sparing. I did ask him what the problem is.

"Go into the headquarters tent, you'll find out soon enough." He replied.

I went near the headquarters tent, and I heard language so colorful any priest in the world would have a heart attack, stroke, and develop early signs of cancer all in one go. (**A/N Sorry if any priest reads this, although I doubt any priests will read this. This is kinda exaggerated, but don't blame me.)**

I found out what the problem was. The people who were assigned as planners weren't agreeing with strategies. I made a few pointers, and practically got fried by how intense their glares were. I now understood why Percy looked so harried. I immediately left the tent and left it to anyone who didn't mind death glares, especially a death glare from the daughter of the Underworld.

**(Leo)**

I was sitting on the Argo II, thinking about Hazel's strange behavior. She always seemed so twitchy around me. I understood why Frank would be twitchy, ever since he told me about his stubble of wood. I was the flaming dude, so I can't really blame him. I don't understand Hazel though. Is it that she doesn't like me? For the first time in my entire life I was actually worried about my social abilities. As I was thinking, Nico slid up to me.

"What's up?"

"Not much, just thinking."

"About what?"

"Hazel."

"What about her?"

"Well, I was wondering why she is always so jumpy around me like I'm a bag of dynamite that might go off any second and blow her head off or something."

"I don't know, but I'll ask her if you like. If what you say is true, maybe I should talk to her instead of you."

"Yeah, thanks man, it would be great. Especially since you are her brother, she'd trust you more."

"I'll see if I can talk to her at dinner."

Nico left, and I returned to my thinking world. Before I could actually do much, I saw Jake Mason from Camp staring at me. It gave me quite a shock until I realized that it was an Iris-Message.

"Hey Leo, how's it going in Greece?"

"Okay, I guess, if you count nearly dying every few days okay."

"That sucks. Listen, Annabeth and the others who left you on that island, they've come back to Camp. They want to go back to you guys, do you think that'll be all right?"

"I'll ask, but I can't just make a decision right away right now. Technically, Percy is the leader, so I'll have to ask him.

"Annabeth says she's really sorry about the fight, and she hopes that she'll be able to be back with you guys. She says she can offer her brains."

"That's true. Over the past few weeks, we haven't really devised any good plans, so I suppose brainpower will help a lot."

"Is that a yes?"

"As soon as I get the all-clear from Percy, which I don't think will be that hard."

"Okay."

As Jake moved to cut the connection, I cried out. "Wait!"

He stopped.

"What?"

"I might not be able to Iris-message you guys from here. There aren't that many rainbows, and we're not exactly in a place where you can make artificial rainbows or anything."

"Do you want me to Iris-message you again in a few days so that you can give us the answer?"

"Yeah, give me three days. With all this preparation around here, it really is hectic."

"That's fine. So three days right?"

"Right."

This time Jake cut the connection without any disagreements.

I rose and went to find Percy to tell him about my conversation with Jake.

**Hope you enjoy Chapter 6!**

**I ask again! Please review! I like feedback!**

**-RAfan2421**


	7. Chapter 7

**Here's Chapter 7**

**Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HHO. They belong to Rick Riordan.**

**VII Frustration turning into fights**

**(Leo)**

When I finally found Percy, he was already in a bad mood. When I mentioned Jake's request, he somehow got even madder. He said that Annabeth and all the others who had abandoned us on that island shouldn't be allowed a second chance. They had their chance to come, but they abandoned us. I countered with the fact that they would provide extra people, so more people could be resting up. Before long, it turned into a fully blown fight. In the end, Percy had to be dragged off, while several others held me off. I had burst into flames, so nobody could really get close to me. They instead just took out swords and blocked my way to Percy. I hate to admit it, but Percy beat me up pretty badly. With his water powers, and his sword moves, I got crushed. I went off and sulked in a corner.

Frank found me later that day. I was surprised about two things. One, that he was the one who managed to find me, and two, that he actually wasn't jumpy near me anymore. He asked what the problem between Percy and I was, and I told him. He immediately looked as if a light bulb had went off inside his head. He told me the reason why Percy was so snappy and so against Annabeth coming back. He also told me that Percy had agreed to let them come back, albeit reluctantly. I felt a bit better, and could understand where Percy was coming from. Now, with the information that Frank had told me, I could also snoop around and find out who Percy was really interested in. That made me feel a lot better, so I went to Percy and we made up for the argument slash fight slash I will cut your head off type of conflict.

**(Percy)**

I don't understand what happened to Leo, but he seemed a lot happier when he came to me and apologized. When I saw Frank was with him, I suspected that Frank had told him about my secret. That sucked, but if the message never gets across to Annabeth, at least until I'm ready to face her, I'll be happy.

I realized after my fight with Leo that his reasoning was logical and based on the good for everybody here, while mine was irrational and totally based on personal reasons. That's why I decided that he was right, and agreed to allow the campers who wished to come back to our camp come back. After we made up, I ended up with Frank, so I started interrogating him.

"Why is Leo so happy? Did you tell him my secret?"

"Uhhh, well, I-, uhhh."

"Your lack of a logical and understandable answer tells me that the real answer is yes."

"Yes."

"Why? I'm sure you can figure out that what I told you was in the strictest confidence. After all, you're not stupid."

"Well, I was trying to make him feel better, and get you two to make up."

"You could have used something else! An excuse! Anything!"

"You know the information will eventually leak, Percy."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't have minded if it leaked after I was ready to face Annabeth."

"Oh are you a chicken?"

At that, I put him in a headlock and wouldn't let go until he swore on the River Styx not to tell anybody else. After that, I let him go, and went off to see whether or not the Headquarters tent was still standing. Considering the arguments and fights that had been going on between Hazel and Piper and the Hunters, I wasn't very optimistic.

**(Jason)**

Gaea is probably the craftiest person (goddess?) I know. Percy and Leo, who had gotten along fine all across the hardships that we endured while on that island repairing the Argo II, got into a fight. I bet that all of this was in Gaea's plan. They are both instrumental to our success. If we begin to grow rifts between us, we could we seriously screwed. Anyways, right now, I am was on a scouting mission.

Suddenly, the clearing erupted with monsters. I saw _dracaena, _Earthborns, hellhounds, and Abe Lincoln with a _spathus_ surrounding me and my fellow scouting mates. I don't understand how Abe Lincoln, who was a very kind-hearted fellow when he was alive, could be violent enough to kill a kid, even though he was a demigod. (You do realize I'm talking about myself right?)

"Back to back." I said.

We stood back to back and faced the oncoming monsters and 16th president of the United States. Suddenly, one hellhound lunged forward, and the clearing exploded into chaos and confusion. I sliced and diced every single monster around me. Earthborn and hellhounds exploded around me. Thankfully, they didn't respawn very quickly. When I faced Abe Lincoln, I got a shock. I never knew that the 16th president of the United States had time to take sword lessons, especially when he had to fight the Civil War. I may be horrible and modern history, but I'm pretty sure that the Civil War was not fought with swords, it was fought with rifles and cannons. He was pretty hard to beat, and I felt pretty bad about sticking a sword through one of America's most decorated and honored presidents.

After all the monsters had been killed, I looked around for injuries. Phoebe and her Hunter partner were fine. However, Matthew, a new demigod son of Hermes/Mercury, hadn't had much training and had received a deep cut in his stomach and a shallower cut in his thigh. He was the only injury, so we crowded around him and tried to administer first-aid, which basically meant giving him an ambrosia square and telling him to eat it. When we figured out that it wasn't enough, we had to pick him up and take him back to Camp. We were pretty sure he was going to spend a few days in the infirmary. I felt bad, since I was the one who was supposed to look after him, but I let him down, and now he was injured. We took turns carrying him back to Camp.

Unfortunately, while we were carrying him back to camp, we had completely forgotten about our real mission. Our mission had been to locate an enemy monster outpost, and either destroy it, or report the location to camp so that we would be able to send warriors in to destroy it. We completely forgot about it, and on the way home I remembered. We couldn't do anything except pray that they wouldn't attack us and take us by surprise. But when the gods aren't listening to you, what use does your prayer do? I don't think it does anything.

**Enjoyed it?**

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**Next chapter update should be Friday unless something out of the ordinary happens.**

**-Rafan2421**


	8. Chapter 8

**Enjoy Chapter 8.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own HHO or PJO. All rights belong to Rick Riordan.**

**VIII Monster Fight II**

**(Jason)**

Well, apparently praying to the gods didn't help. We were surprised by a huge group of monsters. We suffered two casualties and several more were severely wounded. Morale dropped, and almost everybody at the camp was at each other's throats. Thankfully, in two weeks, the campers from Camp Half-Blood arrived. The arrival raised morale slightly, but it fell again when two subsequent monster attacks came.

After three hectic weeks, I finally got some peace and quiet. Well, almost. There was a Greek new camper much like Dakota.

"Hey duuuuuuude, what's up, hun?"

He was drunk, as I hope you can tell. If he had actually called be hun when he was clear-headed, I would've either cut him in half or ran as hard as I could in the other direction. His name was Daniel.

"Don't come near me, go to sleep, and for your information, you're drunk."

"Everybody says that, but I'm not DRUNK!" he roared, drawing his sword.

I drew my sword, knowing that he can get violent, especially when he had had a lot to drink. At least Dakota had been restrained. I don't know why the Greeks let him drink vodka, gin, and other highly intoxicating drinks.

We sparred and I easily defeated him, since he was drunk, and he wasn't very good at sword fighting, because he usually wasn't clear-headed enough to take sword lessons. He wandered off to bother someone else. I don't know why we still kept him. I suppose since it was a favor for Chiron. Chiron had told Annabeth who had told me that he had nowhere else to go, so please take care of him and so on.

Percy came up to me and asked me to go and help him develop a strategy for fighting monster attacks when they surprise us. I went with him to the headquarters tent, and when I ducked inside, I found Annabeth and one of her siblings in a heated debate over a certain problem about the strategy. When they tried to explain it to me, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. When I looked at Percy, he looked just as clueless as I was.

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, if we place our lines here, here, and here, the lines of our demigods and the phalanx will work better. It will be harder to break through for the enemy. We should practice doing this in less than two minutes, because that's about as much time as we will have, if my calculations are correct."

"I'm sorry Annabeth, but I'm not understanding a word you are saying. What phalanx? What calculations? What? What? What?"

"The phalanx formation was invented by the Greeks. It was commonly known as the shield wall, with each man's shield protecting the person next to him. It was a matter of trust."

"So, a shield wall?"

"In essentials, yes."

"Well then, why couldn't you have just said shield wall?"

"The correct name, and I like to be correct, is phalanx."

"Ok, fine."

We discussed more, but I'm pretty sure Percy and I was just faking understanding just to finish this strategy planning. When we finally got down to what we had to do, I was shocked at the schedule Annabeth gave us.

"We won't have that much time!"

"Yes we will, as soon as we deduct some of your scouting missions."

"We can't do that, we have to know when monsters will attack!"

"With this drilling, it won't matter whether or not it was surprise or we knew about it, we'll be ready."

"It would be better if we had a notice, don't you think?"

When the heated argument finally subsided, we agreed on a compromise. Instead of the scouting missions, we would cut some of the miscellaneous people to train for this drill. Thankfully, the demigods understood the importance of this drill, and didn't complain about the lost sleep time. That was good, because if we had a mutiny, we would've been even more screwed than we already are.

(Percy)

I can't believe how Annabeth knows all those terms, vocabulary, strategies, and all that. I didn't even understand the language she was using, let alone all the points of her lecture. Jason and I were just sitting there not really listening to her sermon. When I finally got out of that tent, I went to the only place that I felt a little comfort. I went to the small river that was our water outlet.

I just sat there making different water formations out of the river water when Hazel came up to me.

"What's up?"

"Nothing much, just a horrible day."

"What happened?"

"Well first, I had a lot of people clamoring for my attention so that their plans would get heard. Most of them were just to benefit themselves and maybe some of their friends. Then, I had to fight off a surprise monster attack. After that, I get stuck with Daniel who called me 'hun', and then tried to kill me, and finally, I listened to an hour-long sermon of Annabeth's in which I didn't even understand a word that she was saying, let alone understand what the point of the lecture was all about."

"Yeah, that would be a pretty bad day."

"So, how was scouting?"

"There wasn't much to see. There were no monster camps anywhere around the route that we took. We didn't see any monsters, so we're assuming that no monsters should come to our camp from the route that we scouted. However, you never know, so always be prepared."

"So, you have free time?"

She was about to answer, when three solid bars of gold popped out from the ground. When Hazel had finished destroying or hiding them, she returned to the conversation.

"Yeah, for the next day or so. Then I have to do the drill for that phalanx formation thing that Annabeth came up with.

"Same, maybe we'll get put in the same class."

"That'd be nice. I hope you know something about the phalanx."

"All I know is that it was a shield wall, so just protect me with your shield and I'll protect the guy or girl on my left with my shield. That's what I gleaned from Annabeth's sermon about what we should do when a surprise monster attack comes."

"Oh well, we shouldn't be the worst in the class."

"I sure hope we aren't. Wouldn't that look nice? The seven demigods who were supposed to lead us in battle can't even do a shield wall correctly."

"Phalanx."

"Do you have to be the last bad thing that happened on to me on a miserable day?"

"You're right, sorry. I forgot about your miserable day."

"Sarcasm doesn't help you know."

"It's funny for me."

"Shut up."

**Like it?**

**I suck at being funny, so don't judge.**

**Leave a review, constructive criticism welcomed.**

**-RAfan2421**


	9. Chapter 9

**I'm back with another chapter.**

**Enjoy chapter 9**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**IX The Continental Army**

**(Piper)**

It was another normal day at our camp. The leaders yelling at each other. Wasting hundreds of drachmas trying to contact the gods. Fights breaking out because of disputes. Scouts reporting more and more bad news. Exciting, isn't it?

I was about to walk to the headquarters tent to help Annabeth with her phalanx strategy when the alarm bell started ringing. We all formed into the phalanx that we had been practicing. However, when we saw the enemy, we got quite a shock.

"Are those… muskets and blue uniforms?" Percy asked tentatively.

"_Di Immortales_." Annabeth cursed.

"What?" I asked.

"If I'm not mistaken, that's the American Continental Army back from the dead, with George Washington as leader. Washington had always been my hero."

"Wasn't he your half-sibling?"

"Yes, he is also a son of Athena. He's going to be really hard to beat. He had some of the best strategies. "

Just then, there was a huge BANG! Twenty of us were immediately on the ground, groaning in pain.

"Guns! No fair!" Jason yelled.

"Jason, has fighting Gaea ever been fair?" I asked him.

"Fair point, now get into cover!"

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

After that, there was nothing legible heard. It was chaos, screams, and blood everywhere. The Continental Army charged us with their bayonets, and all hell broke loose. There was the shrieking clash of steel upon steel. Suddenly, something hard and heavy hit me in the side of the head. I saw stars, and everything turned black.

(Nico)

After the battles started, I summoned as much of the dead as I could possible do without knocking myself out. It turned out to be two dozen Greek warriors who charged and wreaked havoc upon Washington and his troops. The good news was, the Greek warriors couldn't die and always resurrected. I had been working on that for weeks, and now it finally paid off. The bad news was, there was so many Continental Army troops that it only took a few hundred of them to clash with the Greek warriors, while all the others could focus on killing my friends and allies. That sucked, so I had to come up with a plan. Well, that was before a huge wall of water combined with a very sever lightning attack destroyed all my warriors and all the enemies. Oh well, you have to sacrifice sometimes.

We looked around at the carnage. There was about five demigods dead, thirty or so injured, and the camp's outer walls were damaged. None of my friends had been hurt or killed, but it was still a time of mourning. From then on, we became super vigilant on scouting missions, not skiving off an area just because we were tired or hungry or something like that.

After the battle, I found myself sitting next to Annabeth, who looked tired, discouraged, and just plain miserable.

"You ok?"  
>"I'm fine."<p>

"Really? You don't look ok."

"Well, there are two things that are bugging me."

"What?"

"One's Percy. He doesn't seem so comfortable or easygoing as before. He's… changed."

"What's the second?"

"George Washington was one of my heroes. He was a great leader, strategist, and everything I want to be, other than being an architect."

"I know, but it's just another way for Gaea to weaken us. She's going to send our heroes after us. Maybe the real Perseus will come for Percy or something."

"Maybe you're right. Thanks for the advice Nico.

"No problem."

(Jason)

To sum it up easily, we got our butts whipped in that fight. Everything we'd been doing for the last month or so fell apart. The scouts hadn't been diligent enough to forewarn us that George Washington and his Continental Army was coming after us. Our phalanx failed because the enemy had guns. Everything sucked.

The only positive side of that fight was it was a real shock for the scouts. They now diligently went through every single bit of ground that they were supposed to cover and reported all the monster camps to us promptly. That was good.

Also, we finally managed to get contact through to the gods. It wasn't Zeus who answered, but Hermes. At least we did manage to contact a god. Hermes agreed to try and get all the major and a few minor gods together and persuade Zeus to come and help us. Hopefully, Hermes and the others can do that. If they can't persuade Zeus, we may be very screwed, since we can't kill any giant, and all the minor monsters can be summoned again and again by Gaea.

I was talking to Leo, who had another meeting with Gaea.

"This time she offered me my mother, immunity forever, and a prominent position in the rule of the giants. Also, she told me that I'd get Khione."

I remembered Khione. She was beautiful, but cruel. However, because of how "hot" she is, I can understand why Leo has a crush on her. I mean, he has a crush on almost every "hot" girl, which includes my sister, which kind of freaks me out.

"I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I know what it feels like to lose family. I lost Thalia and my mother at a young age. I wouldn't blame you if you chose to side with Gaea, just to see your mother again. We would really want you on our side, but if you feel like your mother is too big of a price to pay, we will understand your choice."

"Hell, I'm not listening to some earth lady who although is immune to toilet seats, will die eventually."

I smiled at his joke. "That's the spirit, Leo."

Hopefully, Leo will always be the same old Leo. Sometimes, his corny jokes are great for making you laugh when things turn bleak and the fight seems desperate.

Later, during planning, Hazel fainted and had another one of her flashbacks. She nearly died from this experience. I don't know why, but she stopped breathing after a little bit. Fortunately, she apparently didn't need air. Unfortunately, when we tried to give her CPR because we didn't know that she could survive with just the air in her memories, it nearly killed her. It took her a full two weeks to recover. Thankfully, we didn't need her skills during those two weeks. There were no battles. Gaea hasn't sent monsters after us.

I wonder why?

**Enjoyed it?**

**Tell me what you think!**

**-RAfan2421**


	10. Chapter 10

**So, here's chapter ten.**

**Today's π day!**

**Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and I do not own the Heroes of Olympus series. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**X June**

(Percy)

It's now June 1. There are about twenty days until the summer solstice. I can't tell you exactly how many days, because I wasn't sure when the solstice was, and I'm pretty bad at arithmetic. Everybody in camp has become more restless, more nervous, and more excited about the upcoming battle. Restless and nervous I understood, but I didn't understand why some of the demigods were excited. It made no sense. Why would somebody be excited about a battle in which a lot of them could potentially be slain?

Anyways, I was talking with a group of demigods who had finally managed to help the other Olympians convince Zeus that he should help us. Now, the Olympians were also preparing their battle armor and weaponry. The group assured me that the gods would fight, and I walked off satisfied that at least one part of the plan was going well, even if the other parts were sucking.

George Washington has been a tough opponent. He could counter a lot of the things that Annabeth came up with, including the phalanx and her half-circle defensive line strategy thing that I don't even understand how it works, but would probably work against a normal enemy. I think I know why the enemy also got a huge upgrade in weaponry. Unless I am mistaken, Albert Einstein, the supergenius, had also been in the army. Fortunately, the scientists of the modern world had taken his brain into a lab to study, so this Einstein had to grow a new one. Disgusting, I know, but the point is, this new brain wasn't as smart as his old one. If he still had his old brain, we would've long since been demoralized, so I guess we should say thanks to those scientists who wanted to take his brain to study… weird.

After my talk with the demigods, Nico had another report to give to me.

"I shadow traveled into the middle of their lines and examined the formations and the numbers. I think we're looking at fifteen to sixteen thousand troops, and their formations are pretty complex. I hope Annabeth has a counter to them."

"What do the formations look like?"

"They looked like one of those yin-yang things that the Chinese people have." (**A/N I'm not being racist here, I'm just using a pretty cool symbol for a formation.)**

"Do you have any idea how it works?"

"No."

"Could you defeat the enemy?"

"No."

"Do you know what it looks like?"

"I suppose I could draw it."

"Cool. Can you do that so that we can show it to Annabeth?"

"Sure. When do you think you'll need it?"

"ASAP of course. We're in the middle of a war here."

"Right, I'll do it as soon as I can. By the way, do you like Hazel?"

"What? Where do you get that kind of question from?"

"Well, I can tell that you don't really like Annabeth anymore…"

"Is it really that obvious that I don't like her?"

"So you don't actually like her? And no, it's not really obvious, I just have knack at spotting things in a relationship."

"Did you go to relationship school or something?"

"No."

"Oh well, I don't like Hazel, and don't you have a map to draw?"

"Rigggght. I'll get to that."

Nico left and I was left wondering how long my secret would last. I didn't like Annabeth anymore. The truth was, I was really missing Reyna. Don't blame me, she just seems more like me, not super smart like Annabeth. I'm not saying that Annabeth is bad or smarts are bad, but Reyna is more like me. I hope Jason won't find out or he's going to try to kick my butt. We can't be fighting amonst ourselves at the moment anyways.

(Third Person)

"Thank you so much Aphrodite!"

"Your welcome, I never knew you were so interested in love and relationships, Athena. After all, you have been an eternal maiden."

"That doesn't mean I don't care about my daughter! I don't think that she should go out with that son of Poseidon. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, come on, Poseidon and I are rivals after all."

"True, but you did say that you would give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Well, he's lost it."

"How?"

"Aphrodite, please stop asking questions. I'm paying you to do this, so you don't get to ask the questions, you just do what I say."

"Fine." Aphrodite pouted. She had liked Annabeth and Percy's relationship. It was really cute and was sooo much better than Paris and Helen's relationship. Still, she couldn't turn down that beautiful necklace made of amber, gold, emeralds, and pearls. It would make her look even more beautiful than before, which for her, was pretty hard to achieve.

Athena's voice cut through her thoughts.

"Well, I'll be leaving now. Make sure that that son of the sea god does NOT get together with my daughter again, or I'll be wanting that necklace back."

"Yes, yes, whatever you say." Aphrodite replied.

After Athena left, Aphrodite spent an hour doing makeup, and admiring herself and her new necklace in the reflection of a mirror. There were a few thousand in her palace, so she didn't really need to look that long to find one, most of that hour was spent admiring herself.

Just then, thunder and lightning flashed. Aphrodite sighed, Zeus was summoning the Olympians again. He had been doing that every day ever since he had agreed to fight with the demigods against Gaea.

Well, Aphrodite thought, I hope this meeting isn't as boring as last time, or else I'll go to sleep and my make up will be ruined.

**Did you like it?**

**I revealed who Percy liked, and if you didn't like that character, please don't come and find me and kill me, I just had to pair Percy with another character, because too many people are doing Percabeth and I'm kind of getting sick with it all.**

**Leave a long review! I love reviews, and I'll read them. If you have any questions I can answer them too.**

**Chapter 11 shall be up soon.**

**RAfan2421**


	11. Chapter 11

**This will be Chapter 11.**

**Enjoy the story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians story, nor do I own the Heroes of Olympus series. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XI Battle #1**

**(Hazel)**

The Olympians and the demigods were finally ready to take on Gaea. At least, that's what we think right now. We actually have no idea what forces Gaea has, but we've put together a pretty decent force. We have about a thousand troops, most of them demigods, or sons and daughters of demigods. Annabeth and some other children of Athena began planning our battle strategies. Meanwhile, on the other side, the greatest generals were planning the enemy strategies. At least, that was what we could find out from what our spies told us.

One day, I was talking to Frank, and I was about to spill the beans about the truth about Leo, since I'm pretty sure Frank either knew or suspected, an alarm sounded. When we looked outside our base, we found a pretty hefty ten thousand troops or so out there preparing to attack us. Athena immediately teleported to the ramparts and began looking for weaknesses.

We got into formation all right, but when we charged out, the enemy opened fire with arrows, thankfully, but our formation got disrupted. Athena, even though she was the smartest person on earth, could not fight the combined power of her many sons. That sucked, because it was a big defeat for us, and we lost about fifty demigods. After the battle, I discussed with Annabeth what was wrong with what we did today.

"The formation was excellent, but I don't think the troops were trained in discipline. They have to be able to hold together every time they are in the face of death. Today, the demigods just got scared and the formation broke."

"Well, how do we drill discipline into their brains so that next time they won't run?"

"I thought that you Romans were good at this discipline thing."

"True, but we can't drill Greek methods into these troops well, because we aren't good with Greek formations."

"Well, what if you tried to just drill discipline, not formations."

"For discipline to work, the person who wishes to command the demigods must train discipline into the troops themselves."

"Well, I can't really see Athena training the demigods to fight. That just doesn't seem very likely to me."

"Well, we Romans can't really do it."

"Well, at least teach me how, so maybe we can actually train them discipline."

"We'll give you the basics I suppose."

"Who should I ask?"

"Normally, I would ask Reyna, but she's not here, so ask Jason. He should know how to train discipline. He had to do it because he was a praetor."

"What about Percy?"

"He didn't really have a taste of praetorship, but maybe…"

"I'll ask Jason then, he might be more helpful."

"Ok."

"Thanks for the advice."

Annabeth stood up and left. I was alone, or so I thought, until the shadows seemed to bend, and Nico tumbled through.

"Take me to Percy, quick! Something really bad is happening!"

"What?"

"NO TIME TO LOSE; TAKE ME TO PERCY JACKSON NOWWWWWW!"

"Fine."

I led him to where Percy was talking to Annabeth. I don't know what he was talking about, but I brought Nico before him.

"Percy, the enemy is approaching Mt. Olympus. I just saw them now. These battles are all a distraction!" Nico said.

"Are you sure?"

"YES I'M SURE, I'M NOT AN IDIOT!"

"Ok, geez, calm down."

"You don't understand Percy, they're not going to waste time like Kronos destroying all the temples! They're going to go straight for the seats of power. After they destroy that, the gods will be nothing. NOTHING."

"OK. I'll inform the gods at once."

Percy hurried off to where the gods were. Five minutes later, the twelve gods came out in their full battle regalia and teleported to Mt. Olympus. Now, we didn't have the support of the gods. How were we supposed to defend this position without a great strategist like Athena? Annabeth as pretty good, but she still wasn't the same as the Goddess of Wisdom herself.

"Well, at least now, I can train the demigods the formations with discipline, so that my mother doesn't have to do it." Annabeth said.

"Yeah… "I said, not really even paying attention to what Annabeth was saying.

Annabeth went off to find Jason, while a disheveled and shell-shocked Percy came out of the gods' tent.

"What happened?"

"Well, I'd advise you to never go into the gods' tent with bad news, because they'll get really angry, and that's not good, even if you are the messenger. If you don't believe me, just take a look at this."

Percy had a long scar on his arm.

"Ares?"

"Nope."

"Then who?"

"Athena."

"Are you serious? She's usually not violent."

"Well, if the news I delivered apparently was bad enough to turn Athena from somebody who hunted you down with a plan, to an Athena that tries to attack you head-on."

"I'll file that warning in my brain."

Percy went off to help Leo, who was yelling for somebody to help him hold onto something so that he could fix it. Leo was still the typical Leo, just like Sammy.

(Leo)

Jason came over and helped me fix a section of the stone walls that was our main line of defense. It was kind of like Jerusalem. Our camp was a fortress, sort of.

Anyways, after the wall was finished, Jason went away, and I sat down to take a break. After all, I've been up all day fixing different things.

A sleeping woman's voice started talking in my head.

_"You can see your situation is hopeless. You can't fight us, whether you choose to fight here, or on Mt. Olympus. You should surrender now, I promise to grant you amnesty. You and your friends will never have to fight again. Also, the offer of your mother is still open. If you surrender, I promise you will see your mother again. Isn't that what you want?"_

"Shut up Gaea, and get out of my head. We'll fight to our last breath."

_"Well, if you don't take my offer, I'm afraid that last breath won't be long from now. Partially because I am so well-informed by my secret spies in this camp."_

A cold, cruel laugh sounded in my head. I was too busy trying to fathom what she had said. There was a spy in our camp? Or as she said, spies? Who? Who would do something like that? I trusted practically everybody in our camp, other than a few that I've never met. I shook off the thoughts. Gaea might be bluffing, to cause inner uncertainty and fighting. Dang, that woman, or earth goddess, is really smart. I wouldn't say this aloud, since Athena would most certainly form a plan to kill me, but I think that Gaea might just be smarter than Athena.

"_Good luck with this new, clever, surprise I've concocted for you."_

What?

I found out what she meant when a cannonball went flying past my head.

**Liked it?**

**I think that was a better cliffy than my last one.**

**Well, if you enjoyed this chapter, leave a review. The longer the reviews, the happier I will be. If I'm happy, you guys will get more chapters. So, leave a review!**

**-RAfan2421**


	12. Chapter 12

**Enjoy Chapter 12.**

**Sorry about the mistake I made in the last chapter. I meant to say that Percy helped Leo fix the wall, not Jason.**

**I usually don't have much to say at the beginning of chapters, since I don't have that many news or anything really to reply to reviews, and neither do I do a skit for the disclaimer thing, but this time I do have some news.**

** In the first week of April, I'll be going to Italy for a vacation, so I won't be updating this story in that time. Just a heads-up.**

**Now you can start reading chapter 12, well, after this disclaimer anyways.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians and/or The Heroes of Olympus.**

**The Gods Freak out (For the six hundredth and sixty sixth time!)**

**(Frank)**

After the gods came back from (sort of) saving Mt. Olympus, they were tired, and ready to jump on anybody who annoyed them. That was probably the reason why they nearly disintegrated Nico when he asked the gods whether or not they saved Mt. Olympus. This would've been funny until I accidentally allowed a small giggle escape my lips.

That's the reason why I'm currently sitting in the infirmary with all four limbs broken, plus about fourteen more broken bones, and a concussion. The gods are really freaking out these days, which is not good. Even Athena, who's usually able to maintain a calm, cool manner, is somewhat snappy and shows a lot of emotion these days. It's unlike her.

Fortunately Hazel visited me. It's always nice when your (sort of) girlfriend comes and sees you when you are injured. Unfortunately, my injury was not a heroic cause, and I did not fight hard. My injury was actually because I was an idiot, and a dozen or so superbeings whipped my butt. However, I could tell Hazel wasn't really talking to me or anything. I was telling her about what the gods did and she just kept on "uh-huh"-ing until I got the point that she wasn't listening to me. I knew she was thinking about Leo. I like Leo, he's a great guy, and under any other circumstance I would want to be a good friend of his. Now, I just wanted him to die a painful death, and go burn in Hades. Not nice of me, but hey, I'm a jealous bas*ard. (**A/N I hope T means there can be some minor foul language…)**

Anyways, Percy came in too.

"Hey, how's the uhhh… entire body?" he offered.

"Fine. Can I ask you a question?"

"Well, you already did, but go on."

"What do you do to make a girl like you?"

"Why would you ask me that question?"

"Well, it seems like all the ladies like you."

"Really? No they don't."

"Yeah… they kind of do. I mean think. Annabeth. Rachel. Kinzie. Reyna."

"Don't you dare say any of that to Jason or else he's going to freak."

"Worried?"

"Frank, you're the one lying in bed disabled. I would suggest you shut up and start obeying what I say, or else you might find yourself in a more painful position than you already are."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"I don't think so, there's only so much pain I can take."

Needless to say, I got knocked out, in the end. That was partially because I can't imagine any animal that can do anything when they have all their limbs broken or fractured.

(Hazel)

I didn't realize that Frank knew something was up with me until it was too late. I had already left the infirmary when Percy found me and told me what Frank had said. At least, what he had said before Percy knocked him out, for which I almost dueled Percy in a sword fight. Anyways, I wished I hadn't been so thoughtless and actually listened to what Frank said. I was wandering when the boy in my thoughts came up to me.

"Hey Hazel, you're looking a bit weird, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm f-fine." Dang, I still can't talk in front of Leo without stuttering. I was going to have to work on that, or else more people other than Frank and Percy were bound to find out about my secret.

"You sure, because it looks like you're in a distant land and not even hearing or seeing me."

"Do I look like that? Sorry about that." Yes! I didn't stutter, although it took some effort.

"Kinda… So how's Frank?"

"Pretty beaten up, but I'm pretty sure he'll live."

"Can you tell me why he's so scared of me?"

I didn't expect him to ask a question like that, so I hesitated a little before answering.

"He isn't afraid of you Leo, he's afraid of your fire."

"Why?"

"It's kinda personal, and I wouldn't tell you unless Frank gave you or me permission to tell you. No offense."

"None taken, I understand."

"Have the walls been fixed?"

"Mostly, although some of the exterior parts of it still have scorch marks, and some parts are still broken. It's going to take a while to…"

At which point two things happened. One, I got caught in another flashback, and two, the alarm bell started ringing.

(Leo)

The alarm turned out to be a false alarm. Thankfully, the army that the watchmen had seen was just gathering in the distance, not attacking us. That was good, until the enemy army actually attacked us. Meanwhile, my thoughts turned to Hazel. I knew sometimes my talks were boring, but I never expected someone to fall asleep while I was talking. I didn't know the truth until some time later, when suddenly she disappeared, just like that. I searched frantically all around for any sign of her, but she was just gone. One moment she was there, the next there was no sign of her. Where could she have possibly gone?"

(Narrator Form)

Hazel got sucked into the past, this time, literally. It was the day that she and Sammy had gone horse-back riding. (**A/N: I hope this is what they did. It's all that I can recollect about Sammy in the Son of Neptune.)** Sammy had that cute smile, the same as the one Leo had. He had just finished praising Hazel about her very nice riding skills, and then leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. It made her cheeks burn, but she thought that it was the best day of her life. At least, that was until Sammy left, and Hazel was walking home, when she remembered what she had to endure for another night. Her mother was possessed by some spirit, her father had disappeared when she was young. She remembered that this was the day she died. She was not looking forward to reliving that particular memory again.

**I added some narrator form so that I could add a few parts about Sammy, since some people do want a revisit of the past. **

**I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

**SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if not interested.**

**We won't be seeing much of Hazel, partly because so many people have said that Nico isn't the seventh, and that one child of Pluto/Hades was enough. Now, there's still an open spot. Who's going to be the seventh?**

**Guess in your reviews! You may guess something like "A New Character." **


	13. Chapter 13

**Enjoy Chapter 13.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus. All rights belong to Rick Riordan.**

**XIII The seventh in the prophecy**

**(Percy)**

Hazel was gone. Frank was distraught, although I think that he was unfair to blame Leo. Frank hadn't talked to Leo in a week now, and it wasn't for lack of trying. This was how one attempt began.

"Hello Frank."

There was no reply.

"Frank, we're all worried about Hazel, so we got to stick together. If we split apart, then we are basically fulfilling Gaea's wishes."

What he said was very true and fair, but apparently Frank didn't see it that way. He lost it as soon as Leo finished "We're all worried about Hazel"

"DON'T YOU EVEN TALK TO ME ABOUT HAZEL, YOU LITTLE FIRE BAS*ARD!"

Everybody jumped at the sudden uproar. Now, Leo was normally a very calm and laid-back kind of joker guy. It was pretty hard to get him mad. Now, Leo was mad. And I meant _mad _mad. What ensued was a shouting match, which nearly erupted into violence had people not pulled Frank away. Leo was also restrained by Nyssa and Harley, who had come with Annabeth and the others to the Camp.

Now, Frank had just sat down when Leo appeared. We all held our breath, thinking that they were about to erupt into another shouting match, when Leo extended his hand and said,

"Look man, I'm sorry about what happened to Hazel, and what happened afterwards. I realized it was harder for you, I hope you'll forgive me."

Man, that must've took a lot of guts. Frank opened his mouth, and they were probably going to make up, when a scout burst in.

"Percy! There's a kid at the gates. Looks about twelve. He says that he's a demigod and needs to talk to you."

I was surprised. The probability of a lone demigod surviving in Greece right now was very, very slim.

"Did he say what his name was?"

"No, he just said he wanted to talk to you."

I turned to Jason.

He said, "Let's go see what he wants, we may be able to benefit from it."

Turns out, he was absolutely right.

The demigod's name was Garen. He was a son of Apollo, with an absolutely amazing aim. He couldn't have been more than twelve, but he had better aim than most of the Apollo kids. I asked him why he had come, and his answer shocked all of us.

"I keep on hearing two prophecies repeated over and over in my dreams by this woman with a sheepskin."

"What were they?"

"The first one was:

_Seven half-bloods shall answer the call_

_To storm or fire the world must fall_

_An oath to keep to the final breath_

_And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."_

We were shocked. Could this guy really be part of the seven demigods? Was he destined to take Hazel's place now that she has been sucked into the past?

Out loud however, I merely asked, "And what was the second?"

"_The Earth shall split the seven apart._

_Juno's plan will be taken apart._

_Wisdom's Daughter walks alone,_

_The Mark of Athena burns through Rome._

_The end of the world is drawing near_

_And the earth will come and rule in fear."_

Most of the people started muttering with each other as soon as they heard the words "Wisdom's daughter walks alone, the Mark of Athena burns through Rome."

I realized that this was important, so I asked to talk to him in private.

When we were finally alone, I asked him a few questions.

"Do you think that you are part of the seven in the prophecy?"

"I don't know, but I think that that is what Juno wants."

"Really? How do you know?"

"She keeps on saying things like 'You will save the world.' Or 'you are the gel that holds the seven together'."

"Well Garen, it seems that you may be one of the seven in the prophecy. I don't have a lot of time now, but why don't you go to Jason, he's the one with sky blue eyes and the scar on his lip, and let him fill you in. Tell her that I told you to ask her. Oh, and welcome to our camp, even though it isn't much of a camp."

"Thanks. I'll find Jason and ask him to tell me all about everything."

"Okay, well I have to get to another meeting, the gods want me there, and let me tell you, do not ever refuse to do something for a god. It will really hurt, and I mean physically not mentally hurt."

"Ummm...Thanks for the advice?"

"Don't mention it." I said.

I set off to the gods' tent, praying that the gods were in a good mood.

(Garen)

The more I walk around and scout out the camp, the more interested I become. This camp is an excellent Greco-Roman style camp. Now, I should probably introduce myself and tell you about my life, as it is courteous. I am actually two thousand years old. I accompanied Jason on the original Argo, not the Argo II that the Santa Claus guy built, and fought in the Trojan War. I was killed in battle by Hector, and went to Asphodel. After two thousand years of drifting around in a wheat field, I finally was resurrected by Juno, who got me out of the Underworld. I owe her everything, and she is my patron. I was searching for the Jason kid that Percy had told me to see, but couldn't find him. I asked around, but nobody had seen him. Finally I got to the Santa Claus dude whose name was Leo. He was standing next to a pretty girl who was crying, and by the looks of it, trying to comfort her. When I went up and inquired about Jason, the girl just sobbed harder, while Leo gave me a look like, 'Dude, you may be a new kid, but you are so insensitive.' I had no idea why, so Leo took me off to one side and told me that Jason had disappeared after being sent off on a rescue mission to rescue a couple of demigods with a satyr guide who were trapped by a group of monsters. His rescue group returned, but he wasn't there. The group had no idea what had happened to him, and didn't even remember losing him. Well, there go my chances of finding out more about this Gaea war and this Seven demigods prophecy thing that everybody here is always talking about. I also learned the names of the others in the prophecy. There was Percy, the son of Poseidon/Neptune who I had just been speaking with, Frank Son of Mars, who could shape-shift, Leo son of Hephaestus, who I was talking to right now, Piper, the girl who was crying, a daughter of Aphrodite, Nico, a son of Hades, and Jason, the guy who was missing, a son of Jupiter. Leo also filled in all the things that had happened before about this prophecy of seven. He wasn't a very detailed person, and he seemed distracted. I suppose that does happen when you lose a friend.

I tried really hard over the next few days to figure out everything that I needed to know. It wasn't really easy, since that Jason guy had disappeared, but I managed to get enough to realize why we were fighting Gaea, and what was at stake.

I was practicing against Percy in the sword arena. That guy was good. He beat me dozens of times. It was all I could do to defend against his attacks, let alone do anything to attack back. While we swung at each other, we talked about things. We made up a game called Let's Compare, which was the two of us comparing our different lives. It was interesting to hear about all the things that have changed since two thousand years ago. We were about to end with a final duel when suddenly a sleepy voice began to speak. It said…

**Enjoyed it?**

**Sorry for the long wait, I was kind of busy, and really really wanted to watch the HUNGER GAMES!**

**Please leave a review. Constructive criticism is, of course, welcomed.**

**-RAfan2421**


	14. Chapter 14

**Back from Italy!**

**Here's Chapter 14**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, nor do I own the Heroes of Olympus series. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XIV How to Find a Lost Demigod (A lesson by Percy Jackson)**

(Garen)

The voice talked about how I could experience endless joy if I joined her. I wondered who she was. She seemed nice, although I wondered by she sounded sleepy. I was jerked from my thoughts when Percy suddenly lunged forward and disarmed me.

"What happened?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you were defending well and all, but then, you suddenly just stood there doing nothing."

Should I tell him the truth? Or maybe I should keep it to myself until I figure out who the sleepy woman was. I decided to make up a reason.

"I was wondering about how we were going to find Jason."

"Well, we could look for his tracks with the help of the satyrs, or we could speak to the gods and ask them if they've seen him. Especially Apollo. He sees almost everything from that sun chariot of his."

"Any other ways?"

I probably shouldn't have asked that question, because Percy spent the next half hour talking about different ways to find Jason. I tuned out since I was still wondering about the sleepy woman and the prophecy that I had heard. Could Juno, the woman speaking the prophecy in my mind be the same as the sleepy woman who had just spoken in my mind? However, I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that the sleepy woman was an enemy. It was just a gut instinct, but from my years of experience, I've learned to trust my gut instinct. It's saved by life dozens of times.

When Percy finally stopped talking, a horn sounded. I think that the horn meant it was time for dinner, since every evening that horn sounded. We went to the makeshift dining pavilion, where the satyrs and nymphs in the region were bringing huge platters of food to the tables. I couldn't remember who my godly parent was, since the only memories I had after drinking from the Lethe was the ones that Juno had decided to give back to me, so I sat with the Hermes table. The Hermes children were great, but I've learned to always keep a hand on all of my stuff while around them, since some of my things have mysteriously disappeared for a few days, and then miraculously appear in one of the Hermes kid's belongings. I was talking with the head counselors, the Stoll brothers, when suddenly, I blacked out.

(Jason)

Sh*t! I was screwed. Two of the giants had blocked my retreat route, and if I continued forward, I would fall into a volcano. I was standing at the top of Mt. Etna. My rescue group had gone ahead of me when I had stopped to tie my shoe. As soon as they disappeared, I became swathed in dirt and earth, and got teleported all the way to Mt. Etna. Now, the two giants were laughing as I struggled to find a way of escaping. I'm not the smart one. I'm not the one who is great at coming up with plans. Back when I was the praetor of Rome, Reyna was the one who came up with most of our plans.

My best bet was to try and fight my way out, since jumping into an active volcano means certain death unless you are a son of Poseidon like Percy. I turned, raised my sword and charged. The giants, surprised at first, fought fiercely. Although they were slow, there were two of them so one could always block my way while the other tried to kill me. This went on for hours before I got too tired and collapsed. Strangely, the giants didn't try to kill me, but continued to guard the entrance. Now I knew what they were after. They weren't trying to kill me, they were trying to break me. They were going to keep me on this god-forsaken volcano forever. I hope Reyna and the others find a way to save me, or else my spirit may truly leave me.

(Percy)

Annabeth planned a rescue mission to try and rescue Jason. In the mission she included some satyrs, Reyna and Piper, because they refused to not go, and several other good fighters. I would have joined, but Annabeth told me that I was needed at the Camp. So now I watched as the group left and went to search for Jason. We need Jason here, he is part of the seven. Now that I look at it, it looks like the seven are getting separated. Jason is missing. Hazel got teleported to the past, and doesn't look like she will be returning anytime soon. Now, Piper had gone off to save Jason. We needed to get together, not split apart. Although Leo and Frank had made up, they were still on edge. The seven of us really need to glue together, not split apart. Gaea was winning this war, mentally at least.

I was talking to Frank, who was still depressed about Hazel.

"Look man, Hazel was one of my best friends. We'll find a way to get her back. Whether it's before or after this Giant War, we'll get her back."

"Thanks for the encouragement, but it doesn't help the pain."

"Frank, I know how it feels to get separated from people you love, but you've got to cope with it. If you don't you'll screw up in this Giant War, because you will be split apart from people you love no matter how much you try not to."

Sometimes, you have to take a harsher route. Frank looked a bit hurt, but I think he got the message. Hopefully, he'll cope with the fact that Hazel is gone and fight like he used to, for he's lost a lot of his skills, partially to attention problems and partially to lack of practice. I was trying to motivate him, but for all my efforts, he still isn't practicing much. I'd just turned away and was about to walk off when I heard screaming. I recognized the fact that it was coming from the forest. _Piper._ Something was terribly wrong. Annabeth, Frank, Garen, Nico, and I, the remaining seven demigods, rushed towards the place where the screaming was. When we got there, we found Piper bound in chains made of Earth. Suddenly, I felt a rope curl around my legs and topple me to the floor. The same was happening to the other four demigods. We were all soon cocooned by Earth. Well, the seven of us were now together, albeit in the enemy's hands. Maybe we should make the best of our situation and try to fight Gaea now. That was the original idea, until we landed on Mt. Etna.

**Enjoyed?**

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**-RAfan2421**


	15. Chapter 15

**Here is yet another chapter.**

**Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own HHO or PJO. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XV Mother Earth's Offer**

**(Piper)**

Landing on top of a volcano at high speed is not fun, unless you are a son of Jupiter. The good part is, we found Jason lying on a rock, looking exhausted and frustrated. The bad news was, two huge giants guarded the pathway off the mountain, so we were stuck until we could somehow find a way to defeat or bypass those giants. The gods couldn't help us, because of the magical shroud I saw that was encompassing us. It would probably block the sight of all the gods, even Apollo, so there was no one who could help us. Jason jumped up at the sight of us.

"Are you ok? Are you hurt?" I asked.

"I'm ok, but it's almost impossible to get off this mountain."

Then, his eyes widened as they saw that the seven of us had been all grouped up together. Annabeth, Leo, Percy, Frank, Garen, himself, and I were all grouped onto Mt. Etna. Suddenly, a rumbling chuckling noise sounded and we heard a slow, sleepy voice begin to speak.

"_The seven of you are determined to stop me. I, mother Earth, the most powerful being besides Chaos himself, and you think you can defeat me? I have killed millions, destroyed more hopes and dreams than you could possible imagine. Those who join me will be rewarded greatly for their services. Those who elect to oppose me will soon find they regret their decision, and will be punished most severely. Now, I ask each and every one of you for the very last time, for this will be the last time I will ever extend this offer. I will ask each of you individually. Percy, you could become the greatest hero. You would not need to worry about friends or family again, for they will come under my protection. I promise, nothing will happen to them. Will you join me?"_

Percy answered without hesitation, "No, I will not serve you. I am loyal to my friends, and they support the gods. I will not join your tyrannical, stupid, and corpulent giants. They will be defeated like last time!"

_"Very well, Perseus Jackson, you will live to regret this day. Jason Grace. You could be forever reunited with your family. You could have power, all the power in the world. If you join me, you could have all of this. Do you accept my offer?"_

Jason was more hesitant than Percy. He was not as good at stopping his fatal flaw, which, like all Romans, was a thirst for power.

However in the end, he still answered, "Gaea, I do not serve anybody. I fight for the cause I want to support. I cannot be bribed, especially under these circumstances. I will never serve you. I stand with Percy."

_"It seems that you too, Jason, are proud. Very well, you have turned down my offer. When I win, I will show you no mercy. Piper Mclean, you could have your father back, both mentally and physically. He would pay you more attention, after all that you have been through. Jason could be yours. Your deepest hopes, wishes, and dreams could be fulfilled by me, but of course they require a price. That price is joining and working for my side. Do you accept this generous offer?"_

As soon as Jason turned down Gaea's offer, I had already known that I would not serve Gaea. Now, I was even surer of my decision. I did not need Gaea's manipulation to make Jason love me. If he truly loved me, no amount of manipulation could change that. If he truly loved Reyna, there was nothing I could do. As for my dad, I was sure that he would recover with time. And when you are fighting giants, the mortals should have all the time they need, that is, until we get defeated, if we do ever get defeated.

I answered without any tremor and sign of weakness.

"I will never work for you. You, Mother Earth, are supposed to be responsible for life. You are instead killing us. This shows how corrupted and evil you are, and I have no wish to be on the corrupted and evil side. I do not wish you to ever extend another offer, so your threat has no significance to me. I refuse your 'generous' offer."

_"So you all seem to be intent on refusing you and being good little children. Well, you'll see one day how wrong you were. Next, I turn to Leo Valdez. Leo, I know you miss your mother. I am sorry that I had to take her life, it was a necessity. I will now tell you that I can reverse that. I can bring your mother back, and not just back like in a spirit or ghoul, but back, as in flesh and blood. I will also be able to fix your precious dragon, Festus, and he will seem like new. You could have your very own workshop, with tools and tidbits that you can use whenever you feel up to it. I could supply you with a much better toolbelt than that silly one that Hephaestus gave you. All you need to do, is accept the offer. So, after I state the rewards, I ask you, just like I will ask each and every one of your comrades who haven't turned me down yet, Will you join my side, and fight, build, and work on projects for me?"_

Leo stood tall. "My mother died an honorable death, struck down by the enemy. One day, I will meet her in Elysium. Festus can always be reused. 'Everything can be reused'. Ever heard of that one Porta-Potti face? I will not join you. I don't have a mind as evil and screwed up as you do."

_"I never expected any of you to join me, but I always extend the offer to my enemies. Next is Frank Zhang. I could bring Hazel back Frank. I could bring back your mother and grandmother. You_ _never be that left-out loser. You will be the center of attention. People will adore you. You will have power. You can have all that I can give, which is quite a lot. All you have to do is accept my offer and join my side."_

Frank cut Gaea off before she even finished.

"I won't serve you, so shut up and go away Dirt Woman."

_"My My, Frank Zhang. I expected better manners from someone as sophisticated as you, Fai," _Frank gasped at that word. _"Honestly, I expected better of you. Never mind, on to Annabeth Chase, the dream architect. You could build monuments, beautiful cities. There would be huge plots of land specially reserved for you to build. You could have your friends back, all those who died fighting my stupid sons. Your friend Luke would always be by your side. You could have more power than the gods, and have the power to easily dispatch someone to the Underworld, whenever you feel like it. All of this will happen, as long as you say yes."_

"There was a time that exploiting my fatal flaw against me would work. I have learned to overcome hubris with the advice of the gods. The gods are infinitely better than you Gaea. I have a knack at picking the winning side, Gaea, and I feel that the gods will certainly win, because of your ignorance and stupidity which has caused you to lose all the wars from the First Titan War to the Second Titan War."

_"So, the last person is Garen. You were alive two thousand years ago. I expect you wonder what happened to your girlfriend, comrades, parents. I could show you everything you wish to know about. If you join me, your rewards will be even better than what I have just offered you."_

Garen, being the one who has been with us and the gods the least amount of time, hesitated the longest.

"I have a duty to Percy, who made me feel at home. I also trust his judgement. He has declined your offer, so I will also decline. It is true that I wish to see what happened, but this curiosity is not enough for me to turn my back on friends and work with evil. I decline your offer."

_"Very well. Well, I wish all of you heroes the best of luck in getting past my giant sons!"_

There was the sleepy sound of laughing, followed by the deep-throated chuckle of the two giants as they got into position to stop us from leaving. We probably would have been stuck there forever. However, suddenly,fourteen flashes of light glowed on all sides, and the gods arrived in their full battle regalia, this time with an actual battle to fight, instead of finding a dead demigod, and two other demigods plus a satyr standing over him. At least, this is the story that Percy had told me when we were on the ship and had nothing to do.

** 2 giants vs. 14 gods. Who will win?**

**Review this chapter. More reviews means more chapters in a shorter period of time!**

**~RAfan2421**


	16. Chapter 16

**IDK why I always say this, but enjoy Chapter 16**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, neither do I own the Heroes of Olympus series. **

**XVI 14 vs. 2**

**(Percy)**

The battle between the gods and giants ended fairly quickly. Leo and Hephaestus combined their fire powers and turned one of the giants into a barbecued giant. Hestia helped there with the barbecue sauce. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but it worked anyways. Lady Artemis and I (I know, surprising right? Not often that you work with Artemis if you're a man) combined to finish off the other giant. The other gods helped by employing their own special powers. After the "little" skirmish, I found myself next to Hermes, whose caduceus was still in laser mode. Of course, George and Martha were ecstatic. I also managed to find a rat. I hope George will be happy.

_"Hello Percy, did you bring me a rat?"_

_ "George, how many times do I have to tell you that he's busy!_

"Well, I did manage to find one, so here."

_"Yay a rat!"_

_ "Do you have no manners, George! Say thank you!"_

_ "Oh right, thanks Percy!"_

"You're welcome."

"You know Percy, they shouldn't eat too much." Hermes reprimanded Percy jokingly.

"Sure… what do you feed them."

"Ummm, they're immortal, they don't need food."

"_Hey, just because we're immortal snakes doesn't mean we don't eat food!" _

_ "George, shut up. Last time you said that he put us on mute for two weeks. TWO WEEKS!"_

_ "Oh right, that sucked, but I was just telling the truth!"_

_ "Shut up, do you not understand what those two words mean?"_

_ "But-"_

"Peace and quiet at last." Hermes said.

"You know Hermes, you should learn to keep them under control." I joked.

"Thanks, if you can teach me tricks, I'll pay you drachma, although I'll probably steal them later."

This banter continued for some time, while Jason and the others talked to the rest of the gods. This joking was much needed, as most of the time we were all worried about survival and defeating Gaea, which never lightened any mood. We finally got back to our camp a few days later, and we found that the monsters had attacked. The demigods had managed to repel the monsters, but some had suffered serious injuries, so Apollo and his kids went to heal them. Also, the camp wall had taken a severe beating, and was in need of repairing, so Hephaestus and his kids plus Athena and her "kids" went to fix that. Everybody was making themselves useful, except for Jason, Piper, and myself. There wasn't much we could do. We couldn't strategize. We couldn't build things. We couldn't heal people. We could only fight, but there was nothing to fight at this time. So we wandered around aimlessly, and we were joined by some other people who also had nothing to do. Soon, we decided to hold a swordsmanship tournament in the arena to see out of all of us, who was the best swordsman. No intentional maiming was allowed, and one of the sons of Ares volunteered to be referee. Winner meant that the loser was either disarmed, or the winner had a blade to the loser's throat. Soon, the contest was down to Jason, Piper, Frank, and me. Jason fought Piper, but in a few seconds I could tell he wasn't really trying since he didn't want to hurt Piper, his "girlfriend". He said that he liked Reyna, but judging on his attitude towards Piper, I wasn't sure if I could believe him. He lost to Piper, I wasn't sure whether or not it was on purpose. I fought Frank. I'd learned how to cope with his shape-shifting, mostly, but sometimes it was hard to avoid a claw, or that tail that was whipping up. Soon I managed to pin him down, but before I could put my sword to his neck and successfully win, he changed into a small animal, maybe a mouse, and darted underneath my outstretched arms. He effectively avoided, me, but made me angry. This time, I attacked with reckless abandon, and managed to defeat him. After the battle was over, I calmed down, and was grateful for Frank not taking it personally when I had almost tried to kill and maim him, instead of the mock competition fight that was actually going on. Piper and I agreed to fight the next day, since we had already fought six opponents today. I went off to the showers, but before I could get there I received an Iris-Message. It was from Camp Jupiter, which surprised me. What surprised me even more was that Reyna had managed to hold on to power, even though she had accepted me when I had come, and he was a Greek, therefore somebody to be killed.

"How is it out there?" She asked.

"Fine, how'd you manage to stop Octavian."

"I invoked my praetor rights. I was leader, so I could make decisions over the augur. The augur advises the praetor, but he doesn't really hold power, and I had a few cohorts on my side as well. Octavian was forced to back down. Although, I do not think that I can hold on to power here in Rome forever, I can do my best to stall Octavian for as long as possible."

"That's great. What was the point of this Iris-Message."

"I need you to keep an eye on Jason. He has this curse thing. He angered a god once, and he cursed him so that in the moment where everybody counts on him, when everything hangs in the balance and only he can tip the scales, he will be doomed to failure. He will not succeed. You guys need to find a way of making sure that that never happens, or else you are as good as doomed. Be careful of everything, everybody."

The Iris-Message flickered.

"And Percy I know that Jason likes Piper more than me, so I'll tell you this. I l-"

She never got to finish what she was about to say, for the Iris-Message petered out. Percy wasn't that smart, but if somebody just a bit smarter than him was there, they would've known that Reyna had meant to say. "I Love you."

**Yet again, I must say, for all you Percabeth lovers out there. Don't kill me**

**If you enjoyed the chapter, or think I could do better, leave a review please. Always appreciated! **

**-RAfan2421**


	17. Chapter 17

**Well, I didn't die, so at least that means one of two things. **

**A. You can accept something that isn't Percabeth**

**Or**

**B. You haven't found my address**

**A is good, B is not.**

**Oh well, back to the story. Enjoy Chapter 17. Also, enjoy the new twist. An appearance of old characters! Many of you will be wondering what happens to Annabeth. Well, the answer is in the chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, nor do I own the Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XVII Life in Paradise!**

**(Luke)**

When I went down the River Styx, even with Annabeth's promise, I still wasn't sure that I would go to Elysium. That scared the crap out of me. I really didn't want to go to the Fields of Punishment or Asphodel. Thankfully, the judges ruled that I went to Elysium. That was good. Then, the next part was the Lethe. I didn't want to lose all my memories, especially the ones about Annabeth. I loved her, no matter whether or not she loved me back. I managed to not drink from the Lethe, but it cost me a month in Asphodel, which was super boring as I was drifting in a wheat field for a month. When I finally got to Elysium, I "sort of" greeted some of my "sort of" friends. More like Beckondorf and Silena hated me, Ethan was indifferent, and just said hi, and the rest of the people refused to even talk to me. How welcoming and heart-warming. Most days, I ate the amazing food they had there, laughed with some new friends, and watched the world above. I felt murderous now, and went to calm down, for rage is never a good thing. I couldn't believe Percy was about to dump somebody as good as Annabeth. I tried so many times to make her notice me as someone more than a friend, and Percy can just walk in, go on a couple of quests with her, and BAM she loves him. Life sucks sometimes. As I was walking down to the river, something odd happened. I felt like I was floating. When I looked down, I realized I was actually floating. Nobody was around as I floated through the ceiling and landed on the surface of the real world for the first time in over a year. (**A/N Did I get my calculations correct? It was over a year right?) **I touched myself gingerly, afraid that I was still a "sort of" ghost. Nope, I was flesh and blood. Wow… That was sudden. I wonder why it happened. Suddenly, afigure made of Earth appeared. I guessed it was Gaea, since I had seen her a few times, trying to mess with other demigods like Leo. She always offered everybody tempting offers. I wonder if it was her that brought me back to the world of the living.

I immediately said, "I don't care what your offer is. I don't care what you say. Leave me alone, I will not join you. I've made a mistake one before already. I won't join the side of evil again."

"_Maybe you won't, but I have seen your heart. You still crave power, Luke Castellan, and also the daughter of Athena. I cannot harm either Percy or Annabeth, but I can certainly break you. I control you, Luke Castellan. I brought you back to life."_

"Well, you must've made a mistake. You don't control me. I make my own choices."

"_There will be a time, when you are most needed, when you are counted upon to save countless lives. And in that moment, you will lose control of yourself. I am sure of this. Prometheus told me. Good luck, young hero."_

With that, she faded into the ground. Suddenly, a malign, black, spirit-like figure hovered above me, and then entered me. I felt it, and felt a sense of dread. Nobody could trust me. I would fail when I was needed most. Maybe I should just stop people from needing me. I mean, so far, nobody knows I'm alive.

Just as I was thinking that, somebody came over the hill. Upon a closer look I saw that it was Nico, holding his Stygian Iron blade.

He stumbled back, when he saw me, eyes wide with shock.

"Luke? Is that you?"

Crap, there goes my chance of not being needed by anybody.

"Yes…" I said, drawing the word out long.

"Oh Hades, I never expected to see you again. How did you get out? Why would you even want to get out of Elysium?"

I debated on whether or not I should tell him the truth. I decided that I would, since he would obviously figure it out anyways, him being a son of Hades.

"Gaea somehow pulled me out of the Underworld."

He suddenly looked wary.

"Has she convinced or coerced you onto her side?"

"No!"

"I'm sorry Luke, I know you're a good person, but it's hard to trust you. I hope you understand."

For one moment, I seethed with rage. I was trying to protect them, and they don't trust me. Then I thought back to my history, and I realized that Nico was right. He would be a fool if he was not wary that I was a traitor. I suppose old wounds still take time to heal, even after you killed yourself to defeat a Titan.

"It's fine, I understand. Where are we?"

"Oh, we're in Greece. I'm not sure the exact location; you'd have to ask Annabeth. I don't understand geography very well. We've set up a sort of camp near the battlefields of Greece. We're going to fight the giants on the summer solstice. Hopefully, we can win. There's about 8 giants left I think, but it will still be a hard battle. We've already lost like 15 demigods to monster raids." Nico rambled.

"Am I allowed to join?"

"I'd say yes, but it's up to the gods to decide. I'll ask Percy first, and if he agrees to accept you, which I think he will, then you stand a good chance. Although the gods resent him for showing the up last time, he's still the "savior" of Olympus."

For a moment, jealousy burned. I still couldn't shake off the echoes of my past. Nico helped me shadow-travel back to camp. I could sort of do that. I knew a bit about traveling, and I was a son of Hermes.

**Did you expect this?**

**What will happen at the Camp? Do you think Percy will accept Luke? I know these answers, so asking them are pretty pointless, but still, who cares…**

**If you enjoyed the new twist, leave a review! If you think that this shouldn't have happened, tell me. I might just change it!**

**-RAfan2421**


	18. Chapter 18

**So, I decided to keep you guys hanging about what happens after Luke goes to the camp. I will now write a chapter about the "other" side. Or Gaea's side, if you don't understand what I mean by other.**

**Anywho, enjoy the chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, nor do I own the Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XVIII A New Recruit**

**(3****rd**** person, for now)**

The giants' camp was full of the sound of clanking. Monocle Motors had started up again, and were constantly supplying the giants with armor, weapons, and other things that they forged. Suddenly, there was a shout outside the gates.

"Hail the gates, we bring a prisoner!" shouted Echidna, who had joined the giants' cause, purely for the food.

The gates were promptly opened by several _dracaenae_ and Echidna slithered in. Behind her, a group of monsters including her son, the Chimera. They dragged a boy behind them. He was half-conscious, and looked as if he had been through a beatdown. He had blond hair, surprisingly grey eyes, tanned skin, and looked pretty strong. They went into Porphyrion's tent. When Porphyrion saw the demigod, he immediately ordered him to be treated like a king, and to give him the best food. Porphyrion knew about this demigod. Gaea had told him about the demigod. He was destined to one day vanquish either the gods or the giants. It would all depend on his will.

Later, the boy woke up to find a _dracaenae _standing next to him. He scrambled away.

"What do you want from me? I'm just a kid! You beat me up and take me to some hellhole. What is wrong with you."

The _dracaenae _smiled.

"You're very important to us. We need you. You will help us, and in return you will receive all you ever imagined from our patron."

"You'll never be able to bring my father back."

"Who's your father?"

"He's dead. He died in a car accident years ago."

"What about your mom?"

"I don't know who she was. She abandoned me. I don't care about her."

The tent flap opened, and Porphyrion stepped in.

"Hello, young demigod. Are you comfortable?"

"Who are you? What did you call me? Demigod? What does that mean?"

"Answer his questions." Porphyrion ordered the _dracaenae. _

"This is Lord Porphyrion. He is king of the giants. He called you a demigod, yes. That means you are half-human and half-god. Under normal circumstances monsters like me would try to eat you. However, seeing as you are-Ow!"

Porphyrion had slapped the _dracaenae._

"What did I tell you?"

"Right m'lord, sorry."

"Anyways, what is your name?"

Now, the blond kid's name was Josh. He was from a poor orphanage that never gave him enough to eat or drink. The orphanage also had horrible staff. They pushed around the boys. Each day, they would laze around while the boys did all the work needed to keep an orphanage running. All they did was reap the profits. He wasn't a very outgoing guy. He was also defensive, and that's what made him decide not to tell the giant the truth.

"My name is Jared."

"Hello, Jared, and welcome to giant camp. My brothers and I were made specifically to destroy the gods. We have risen up to destroy them, and we intend to enlist your help." The giant stated.

"What gods?"

"The ancient Greek Gods."

"But… they're myths right?"

The _dracaenae _sighed. She would have to do the explaining. All the demigods went through this, and it was so boring and annoying to explain such simple things.

"The reason you've never seen your mom is because she's an Olympian."

"As in the sport?"

Gosh, the kid was dumb, thought the _dracaenae_.

"No, as in the Greek gods."

"You're telling me they exist."

"Yes…"

"I don't believe you. Give me proof."

The _dracaenae _had been wearing long pants so as not to scare the boy. Now, she lifted the pants up, and Josh could see the scaly, reptilian legs.

"What the-"

Josh got the living daylights scared out of him.

"You-You're a Scythian dracaena."

"Ahh, so you have been studying those 'myths'."

"But they're myths."

"Are you blind?"

"No."

"Then look and tell me that they are myths."

Josh couldn't deny that the dracaena's legs meant that all the things he'd learned in Latin class were true. The gods, goddesses, monsters, and more. Now, he began to fear for his safety. He knew that monsters ate the demigods they could. However, so far, they had been nice to him. He decided to wait it out and see what would happen.

"Now that you know who you are, I think you also know who your mother is."

Josh thought about it. He was smart. He had always been known as the brain in his class. And he had grey eyes. Only one goddess fit the description. Minerva. Minerva is my mother, he thought.

"Minerva is your mother." Porphyrion said, as if he could hear Josh's thoughts, which he could, although Josh didn't know that.

"But, I thought she was a virgin goddess. Does that mean she broke her oath?"

"No. Apparently, children of Athena are born from the mind. That got started ever since she came out of that idiot Zeus's head."

"Oh…"

The more Josh thought about it, the angrier he became. If his mother was a goddess, and powerful, then she should've stopped his dad from dying. She should've helped him. He knew that he was being unreasonable, since Athena probably had many children, but he didn't care. He believed that Athena should've helped him. Therefore, he decided to help the giants. That decision would nearly lead to the destruction of all life on Earth. However, Josh didn't know that yet. So, he swore rashly on the River Styx to help the giants. And paid the price.

**Well, it's something different. Tell me if you liked it.**

**Leave a review. If you write an anonymous review, please don't just write anon. Come up with something better. I like all reviews, however, I can only respond to the ones that are left by users. **

**There's another new character! I hope you like him. He'll become a much more major figure later on.**

**-RAfan2421**


	19. Chapter 19

**Sorry about the long wait for this chapter, I had some things to do this week.**

**Enjoy Chapter 19.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XIX Luke's Back!**

**(Annabeth)**

When Luke walked through the gates to our camp, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how he could have come back. Nico didn't explain, just went straight to Percy. I wondered what Percy would say on this matter? Would he let him stay? Surely he would, after what he did during the Titan War. However, Luke hadn't been very nice to him, even when he was dying. I hope Percy allows him to come back. It would be great to have my old friend back.

I went to the headquarters tent, in case I needed to persuade Percy to allow Luke to join us. When I went inside, I found that Percy had already accepted Luke. That was great, until I saw Percy and Nico talking in hushed tones.

I made out two words. "Luke." And "Can we trust him?"

Both came from Nico, so I stormed up to him.

"You should trust Luke after all that he did to help us win the Titan War!" I yelled.

"Calm down." Percy said, but I wouldn't listen to him. How dare anybody suspect Luke. He sacrificed himself to kill Kronos.

"No, I will not calm down, Percy Jackson! Don't defend him. Let him tell me to my face exactly why we cannot trust Luke after he sacrificed himself to scatter Kronos into a thousand pieces?"

"I—" Nico stuttered.

"Speak up, or do you know that you are wrong? Are you just trying to hide the fact that you are suspecting one of the heroes of the Titan War?"

That finally got Nico angry. I probably shouldn't have done that.

"He was talking to Gaea, Annabeth! I saw him talking to a huge mass of Earth. How can I know whether or not he stayed true to us? He doesn't exactly have the cleanest record!"

I slapped him for those last few words. A few seconds later, we were fighting. I had pulled out my knife, and he had pulled out his sword. It would've gotten way out of hand had Percy not stopped our fight. He blocked Nico's sword with Riptide, and grabbed my arm with his other hand. I stuggled, before calming down. I realized that I was in the wrong. Nico hadn't been there when Luke had sacrificed himself. He also saw Luke talking to Gaea, and that is fishy. Gaea's very good at tricking people, and Luke could be tricked just like he was tricked to fight for Kronos. I knew I had to apologize.

"I'm sorry that I slapped you Nico, but I still think that Luke is loyal."

He was breathing hard. I could tell that he was still angry, but more controlled. He didn't say anything, just stalked out of the tent.

"Are you hurt?" Percy asked me.

"I'm fine. What's his problem? Why can't he accept my apology?"

"Sometimes, people just need some time to cool down. He'll come around. You'll see. In a few days, he'll talk to you again. If he doesn't, I'll talk to him."

"Thanks Percy."

"No problem." Percy said, before heading out to the training area.

"I'm going to train." He said over his shoulder.

I sat down in one of the chairs, and pulled some notes toward me. I was looking for flaws in our strategy, when Luke came in.

"Hey!"

I immediately started blushing. I had always liked Luke, however hard it had been for me to admit it. I never told anyone, not even Percy, although I think he suspects.

"H- H- Hello Luke." I hate my stutter.

"So, what's going on?"

"Not much, c- can I ask y- you a question?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"W-What were you t- talking about with G- Gaea?"

"Oh… she offered me a place in her army. I declined, because I've learned from past mistakes. I don't think that power gives me anything."

I tuned out there. He rambled on, while I studied him. The blond hair, blue eyes (**A/N I think Luke had blue eyes right?)**, and that scar on his cheek from that dragon. I still had the claw that he had cut off while he had been fighting Ladon.

Just then, Frank burst into the tent.

"Gaea's attacking again. She's coming from both the north and the south, and there are tons of monsters. Athena had ordered all fit and able demigods to ready their weapons and face the oncoming threat. She wants you there too Annabeth. Something about helping her with strategy."

"OK Frank, I'll be there immediately. Tell my mom that I'll be there, and then tell her that I wish to command the demigods that are going to defend the south side of our camp."

He nodded and rushed off. Luke and I grabbed our weapons, and ran after him toward where Athena and the rest of the gods stood. When I got there, Athena gave me a nod, and told me to go defend.

"Use Sequence 2412!" She yelled over the noise of the monsters and the demigods around us.

Uh Oh. If she told me to use THAT sequence, we must be in real trouble indeed.

(Josh)

Over the past few days, I learned a lot of swordplay and strategies. Finally Gaea saw it fit to give me part of her vast army to attack the gods' south side of the base. I was ready to destroy them, and enter the base. I was going to make my godly parent pay for abandoning me. I led the monsters up the hill leading to their base. I heard the horn sound, which meant for me to attack. Meanwhile, another part of the army led by Porphyrion would attack the north. I had faith that we would win, so without hesitation I ordered my troops to charge.

We sped across the open ground. Everything went great, until monsters started dropping like flies. I looked to see the problem, and saw silver arrows flying through the air, piercing monsters, and turning them into golden dust. Mother Earth couldn't resurrect them all, since that would take a lot of energy that she didn't have. However, by the time the third volley of arrows came, the monsters were already swarming the walls of the camp. I was about to join the fray and hack some demigods to oblivion when something hard and heavy hit me in the head. Everything went black, and I fell to the ground.

**I wasn't going to put too much in a chapter **

**Guess what happens in the reviews!**

**-RAfan2421**


	20. Chapter 20

**Yay Chapter 20! Twenty whole chapters!**

**Well, enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and I do not own the Heroes of Olympus. All rights go to Rick Riordan.**

**XX Siege**

**(Luke)**

The invading armies backed off after their first aggressive onslaught. They were unable to break through our defenses. However, they immediately began siege operations. From a distance, our people in the watchtower could see them building catapults and a wall to circle our camp and cut us all off from the rest of the world. Sure, this was the only place in the worlds with demigods, but the land that our camp was on was not fertile land, so we could not grow crops. We depended on stocked up food, and food imported from some companies. Now that they had cut off that supply, we would slowly starve. Siege is very effective against non-self-sufficient places, as they will weaken from the hunger. We had about one week's worth of food stored up. The only thing that we could do was organize raiding parties. Annabeth took charge of organizing groups to charge out, break through the enemy siege lines, and get food. She was good at it, but on the other side, George Washington was training his men to stop such charges. You could see the preparations they were making, and both Annabeth and Athena's despair at their inability to come up with a plan to get food. It scared me, and I could tell it also scared a lot of the demigods who knew Annabeth well, because none of us had ever seen her not be able to come up with a plan. The fact that Athena couldn't was even more shocking. She was the goddess of wisdom and she should be able to come up with an idea. She did, but it seemed that somebody was helping the enemy. We figured out who that was in a short while. A scout reported back to camp that Gaea had gotten enough power to bring Enceladus out of the volcano that Jason and Zeus had stuck him in. He was now in charge of the stratagem of the enemy. That was the reason Athena couldn't do much. Enceladus was created to counter her. He was supposed to shut down all the ideas that she had. Now, it seemed that it was working. Therefore, the entire camp was helping Annabeth with her plans.

I was at the headquarters camp with Nico, who had managed to become more easy-going around me. He was the only one besides Annabeth who treated me as a complete equal, not somebody who had betrayed them earlier. We talked about one strategy, which involved building a bunch of battering rams and smashing through the enemy.

"You think that this will work?" I asked.

"I don't know, it's hard to tell. It really depends on whether or not the people carrying them get too tired or not." Nico replied.

Just then, Annabeth entered, looking frazzled. I felt guilty showing her another plan after how much she had already done, and the day wasn't even close to being over. When she looked over the plan, she pointed out a few flaws like she always did.

"Oh, those battering rams aren't designed well enough, they have to be lighter or the wielders will never be able to carry it AND ram it through enemy lines."

Meanwhile, I was staring at her. It had been a long time since I'd seen her, and even with her as tired as she was with dark circles underneath her eyes that showed how much sleep she was getting each night, which was probably less than three hours or so, she was still looking beautiful. I wish that I hadn't betrayed her when I got hoodwinked by Kronos. She had lost her trust in me.

"Are you ok, you're looking at me funny?" Annabeth's change of tone jerked me back to the present.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just thinking of stuff."

"Memories?" she asked.

"Yeah, stuff like that. The old times, with Thalia, you and me."

I hoped that she still loved that time, more than she loved Percy at least. I resented Percy a little, even though I knew it was wrong. He had done a lot for her, and she was the one who had expressed love first.

I shook my head from these thoughts. I was getting as bad as a child of Aphrodite with these love thoughts.

"Yeah, they were great." Annabeth said. There was a note of accusation in her voice. I couldn't really blame her. I wished we could go back to those times when it was just the three of us.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For everything that happened during the Titan War."

"You were hoodwinked, I can't blame you. And you did help us in the end, by sacrificing yourself. I'm not going to blame you for anything you did."

"Thanks… but I still feel bad."

"You made a mistake." She said firmly.

"Still…"

She put a finger to my lips.

"Don't say it. Just let go of it. We don't blame you and that should be good enough for you."

I nodded, even though I wasn't completely reassured. Her next statement shocked me.

"We're going to be on the battlefield in about two days. We've made all the preparations. We're going to have to fight soon. Do you still have your old skill at swordfighting?"

I did, but the fact that we were going to fight in two days was shocking. I thought that we still needed food. After all, our rations are short.

"Don't we need to break through the lines to get food first?"

"We're using the food shortage as a way to make our people fight harder. With the knowledge that if they win, they will live, and if they lose, they will die, the demigods will fight harder whereas Gaea's monsters and demigods don't have the incentive to fight as hard as we will."

"That's a terribly cruel strategy. You're going to tell the demigods that this battle is life or death?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to tell them."

**Like it?**

**Luke's back, you know what that means.**

**Well, at least I hope you do.**

**Leave a review if you liked it. Give constructive criticism as well.**

**-Rafan2421**


	21. Author's Note

**Hello all readers. I'm sorry to disappoint you all with a chapter that is an author's note, and I'm also sorry for not updating for a while... OK like 3 weeks. I am just going to respond to some reviews in this A/N and let you know when I can next update.**

**As for the reviews:**

**To anon: I censored it... and its rated T. I'll try to keep it to a minimum.**

**To Bhnnkkh: I sincerely thank you for taking the time and effort to put in the constructive criticism that I so needed. And I'll only say that the relationships will get interesting. I won't tell you what happens.**

**To Teresa: If you don't like the story than either go read another story or leave some actual constructive criticism instead of yelling at me to put back Percabeth. First, that's not going to work. Second, there are thousands of Percabeth stories out there and many more created each day. Go read some of those if you want. And your information is wrong. He definitely knew Reyna for more than 2 weeks and he LIKED her. Like I said before, don't like, don't read. So go read a Percabeth story if you love those so much.**

**To Bob: I'm not going to repeat myself, just read what I said to Teresa. And BTW, if you're so great at creating names, then you should do something constructive and maybe actually suggest a name? Instead of saying it sucks and then nothing?**

**OK, on to the news. I'm leaving the U.S. so it might take another week for me to upload. Also, uploads are going to be slower since I'll be away for summer vacation. I promise I won't stop this story, but it will take longer. So just wait, and I promise there will be another chapter soon.**

**Also, the next time that I post a chapter, it will be in the place of this one. So if it says new chapter and the same chapter again after this one, then that means the next chapter has been posted.**

**Again, I'm sorry to disappoint all of you with this A/N. I will try my best to upload the next chapter as soon as I can.**

**RAfan2421**


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